How valuable is artistic vision with game design and innovation, now that AI makes it easier to create copycat designs?

Players’ curiosity to try a new design is not as important a motivation as it might seem, especially looking at the endless flux of game releases with similar, often indistinguishable mechanics. Otherwise, we would not have seen the evergreen titles like Mega Moolah bringing revenues to operators year after year, or casino players trying to find a game with different mechanics instead of a new design.

For poker and sports betting verticals, the design is even less motivating than the operator’s offering itself and the player community. Well-designed avatars, animations and tables are essential – but they won’t create an incentive for a player to deposit or to stay with an operator when a good loyalty programme or poker liquidity in the tournaments is missing. Not just artistic vision, but innovation and the ability to experiment with the hit titles and themes can allow the game provider to stand out. Copycatting might only bring short-term results that last until players spot another trendy design, and this creates a vicious cycle of endless designing and releasing without creating anything new.

EvenBet Gaming doesn’t truly compete with casino game development studios, although we have recently created several non-poker games that normally fall into the casino games category, such as baccarat. We don’t aim to become a casino game development studio, and we added these games to our portfolio to create additional long-term value for our partners, so the goal was not to copycat but to stand out. Here, the artistic vision was our top priority, even though we used AI at some point to simplify routine operations in the design.

Online poker is a major vertical for EvenBet – what potential do you feel AI has to improve online poker products for players?

The first area is using AI in anti-fraud solutions. EvenBet has been using machine learning for quite a while to signal potentially fraudulent or suspicious player behaviour, and it has become a game-changer.

However, we still recommend that the final decisions on sanctions, such as player bans or funds blocking, be made by human specialists. Imagine making AI responsible for the decision to transfer money to fraud victims or for closing an active account?

The second key area is creating proactive responsible gaming tools. The current responsible gaming approach is mostly based on enforcing legal guidelines, but I believe that it will change. AI tools can monitor player habits to signal potential risky behaviour: for example, constantly increasing losses, trends in a session length, and others. If AI can give recommendations before such behaviour becomes an actual problem of gambling addiction, we can make the industry healthier and progressively lower the regulatory pressure.

What is EvenBet’s number one priority for 2026: Product development or market expansion?

In our 2026 strategy, product development and market expansion complement one another. Not only do new markets demand a different product approach – take Africa as an example – but also shifting player preferences in the established markets make us rethink our product development strategy.

In the last few months, EvenBet has launched two new products, changing the way operators integrate poker: Spins Poker tournaments and One Click Poker cash tables. Neither is disruptive from the game mechanics point of view, but both can reach audiences that used to be less interested in classic poker formats: casual casino players and bettors, and users in the emerging markets who are not yet acquainted with the game. At the same time, the evolution of our full-scale poker platform continues, alongside new game development.