“Operating within clear regulatory boundaries encourages us to leave as little “white space” as possible, which in turn pushes smarter solutions. This means extracting more value from the data we can legitimately use, improving lifecycle journeys without crossing compliance lines, and designing engagement mechanics that are sustainable rather than spiky.”
Golden Whale’s CTO Thomas Kolbabek recently joined Next.io‘s roundtable on what sustainable success and innovation look like in the Swiss iGaming market.
To explore this, three industry leaders joined this roundtable:
- Thomas Kolbabek, CTO at Golden Whale
- Deborah Conte Santoro, Managing Director, ReelLink at SwissCasinos
- Andrea McGeachin, Global CEO and Neosurf
With the Swiss market representing a notoriously tough nut for operators, payments companies and platform service providers to crack, we sat down with some of the key players in each field to learn the non-negotiables for working in such a strict regulatory environment, the impact these rules have on customer expectations and what the future holds for online gaming in the country.
NEXT: The Swiss market has a very structured, and some would say, strict regulatory environment. Have you found that this encourages a higher standard of innovation or restricts it?
Thomas Kolbabek: In any system, a degree of “selective pressure” creates incentives to innovate, because it forces you to leave as little opportunity on the table as possible. In practice, regulation can remove some short-term growth levers, but it also pushes businesses to become more creative in the right areas: better product design, improved measurement, and more thoughtful personalisation. The outcome is often higher-quality innovation, rather than just more innovation.
NEXT: Building on this, can you give some examples of how stricter regulations have actually led to smarter innovation in your business or the wider market?
Thomas Kolbabek: Golden Whale itself is a good example. Operating within clear regulatory boundaries encourages us to leave as little “white space” as possible, which in turn pushes smarter solutions. This means extracting more value from the data we can legitimately use, improving lifecycle journeys without crossing compliance lines, and designing engagement mechanics that are sustainable rather than spiky. It also puts measurement and continuous optimisation at the centre of everything we do.
NEXT: Which technologies or digital trends are likely to have the most considerable influence on the evolution of the Swiss iGaming market in the next few years?
Thomas Kolbabek: As is the case in many other industries, AI, machine learning and automation will be the most influential forces. We’re already seeing how autonomous go-to-market capabilities – moving towards Full Model Control (FMC) – enable faster experimentation, real-time decisioning and more automated player journeys. Operators that can learn faster while remaining compliant will steadily compound advantages through better retention, stronger player experiences and more efficient marketing operations.
#GoldenWhale #FullModelControl #iGaming #NEXTio #RegulatedMarkets #DecisionIntelligence
