Soft2Bet chief product officer Yoel Zuckerberg argues the iGaming industry is undergoing a fundamental structural shift away from acquisition-led growth models.
For years, affiliates, SEO, and paid media formed the backbone of how operators expanded into new markets and competed for player spend.
Zuckerberg acknowledges these channels remain relevant but says their efficiency has declined significantly as acquisition costs rise across most digital channels.
“SEO and affiliates have been foundational to iGaming growth for many years. They helped operators scale efficiently, especially in highly competitive markets. That reality hasn’t disappeared overnight,” he said.
He identifies three structural forces reshaping the industry: rising acquisition costs, weaker long-term engagement after initial sign-up, and growing saturation across traffic sources.
“The key issue today is that traffic alone is not a differentiator anymore. Most operators can access traffic. The question is what happens after acquisition,” Zuckerberg explained.
His position is that product design has become the primary growth lever, replacing pure marketing spend as the key determinant of long-term player value.
“Marketing still brings users in. That will always be necessary. However, in today’s environment, product determines whether those users stay,” he said.
Soft2Bet’s answer to this challenge is its gamification ecosystem MEGA, which stands for Motivational Engineering Gaming Application, a structured framework for building sustained player engagement.
Rather than relying on one-off bonuses or promotional campaigns, MEGA introduces missions, challenges, milestones, and progression paths designed to evolve continuously over time.
“The goal is to create a more natural engagement rhythm where users return because they are progressing, not just because they are incentivised,” Zuckerberg said.
He argues that many operators remain too focused on volume metrics such as registrations and first deposits, which can mask weak engagement quality underneath strong acquisition numbers.
The more advanced operators, he says, are shifting toward lifecycle metrics including retention rates, engagement depth, and lifetime value as the true measures of platform performance.
Zuckerberg also sees the affiliate model evolving rather than disappearing, with quality of user intent becoming more important than raw traffic volume in a maturing ecosystem.
“Affiliates remain important, but their role is changing. Rather than being purely volume-driven acquisition channels, they are increasingly becoming more selective and quality-focused,” he noted.
On the education front, Soft2Bet will launch the second edition of its Gamification Academy at SBC Summit in Lisbon in September, aiming to close the gap between gamification theory and practical implementation.
“It reflects our belief that gamification is not a trend but a fundamental component of the future of retention strategy,” Zuckerberg said.
Looking ahead, he frames the broader ambition in straightforward terms: the next phase of iGaming growth will not be defined by who acquires the most users, but by who retains them most effectively.
