This episode, Jon is joined by Delasport CEO Oren Cohen Shwartz to discuss how AI is reshaping iGaming, from marketing and software development to player retention, customer support, and operational costs. He argues companies need a deliberate AI transformation strategy, while Bruford raises concerns about hallucinations, oversight, and the consequences of increasingly autonomous systems. I mean, there’s more, but that gives you the idea, I think. Can’t remember if The Terminator came up in conversation though…
What we talk about, in a list:
- AI is shifting marketing discovery from traditional SEO and PPC toward AI search, while affiliate businesses may need systems that can communicate with AI agents.
- Delasport has been running an AI transformation for more than 18 months, examining repetitive work across departments and aiming to improve efficiency, protect revenue, and scale.
- Cohen Shwartz describes the current workplace as a hybrid model: people direct and check AI output, while routine tasks are increasingly automated.
- Bruford recounts an AI tool inventing transcript content rather than flagging a file-length limitation, prompting a discussion of hallucinations, model choice, prompting, and human review.
- Cohen Shwartz says AI can lower software, operational, and experimentation costs, while taxes, regulatory complexity, fraud sophistication, competition, and acquisition costs are rising.
- He contrasts roughly 120-150 new casino games per month in 2020 with about 2,000 per month at the time of recording, making discovery and player attention harder to secure.
- He argues retention depends on personalized player experience: he cites a 65% drop-off between first and second deposit among the UK casino players in the example he gave.
- Cohen Shwartz recommends starting with an audit of repetitive departmental work, setting a measurable business strategy, choosing tools and models for specific tasks, training staff, and tracking results.
- The conversation closes with a lighter exchange about Quentin Tarantino films, Reservoir Dogs, and the origins of Delasport’s name.
Takeaways:
- If you don’t transform yourself using AI, you will not survive.
- The hybrid stage is the man plus the machine.
- A single human can now become a force of X5, X10, depends on the task.
- It must be with a strategy.
- Start. If you didn’t start yet, start.
- It’s a matter of putting the strategy in place.
Key quote:
“First and foremost, start.”
Chapters, but add a bit because of the beautiful music – which is used with permission of the rights holder, Mara Carlyle:
- 00:00 Introducing Oren Cohen Shwartz and Delasport
- 06:07 AI’s fast-moving impact on iGaming marketing
- 13:22 Why Delasport treats AI as a business transformation
- 16:50 The hybrid human-and-machine workplace
- 22:01 AI hallucinations, model limits, and human verification
- 31:46 Can AI learn a writer’s creative voice?
- 40:00 Agents, automation, and the need for oversight
- 53:29 Costs, game supply, and the fight for player attention
- 01:00:04 Personalization as the key to player retention
- 01:05:00 What is getting more expensive across iGaming
- 01:12:58 How companies can begin an AI transformation
- 01:21:32 Delasport’s name and a post-show film conversation
Oren Cohen Shwartz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orencs/
Resources & Links:
As ever, we thank all of our sponsors for their vibrant and excellent support that makes all of this… magic… possible.
Optimove, who turn customer data into something special, with tools that make businesses just plain work better. Optimove, your support helps us to keep creating content for an industry that probably thinks we disappeared years ago.
Then of course there is Clarion Gaming, no hang on World Gaming, providers of the magnificent ICE expo and iGB Live! in London. There is simply nobody better at what they do.
And the new-ish-est members of the family, the excellent Gaming Laboratories International.
GLI is a world-class Testing, Inspections and Certification company committed to delivering the highest quality land-based, lottery, and iGaming testing and assessment services, working in more than 710 jurisdictions.
For more information, visit gaminglabs.com.
The Gambling Files podcast delves into the business side of the betting world. Each week, join Jon Bruford and Fintan Costello as they discuss current hot topics with world-leading gambling experts.
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