iGaming Trends 2025 and Beyond: Amazing and Alarming Predictions by Industry Leaders

Learn iGaming trends for 2025 and beyond laid out by those who have been driving the industry for years. Fasten up because Adsterra, Voluum, and SB Software experts joined forces to unveil the most anticipated yet controversial iGaming industry trends. 

Expert crew:

• Mikhail Zhukov, Head of the CPM Department at Adsterra
• Wojciech Trzaska, Chief Communications Officer at SB Software
• Marcin Kumięga, Business Development Director at Voluum
• Kamila Łuksza-Szpyt, Head of Business Development at Voluum

Here in the blog, we share an extensive industry outlook. If you want to grab firsthand insights right from the expert crew, check the full episode of the Adsterra iGaming podcast on YouTube!

iGaming trends: shifting to new promising geos

These are not only shifts in the regulatory landscape that shake the iGaming industry. Experts discuss increasingly important economic and cultural tendencies reshaping the world and player habits. Mikhail Zhukov shares stats revealing new markets to surge.

Africa’s iGaming market outlook

Ad traffic from African countries continues to emerge while its quality has enhanced. Africa’s iGaming sector opens vast opportunities. It’s presented by younger audiences who have massively adopted smartphones and mobile payment options. Major competing geos here: Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania.

Main Africa’s iGaming industry drivers:

1. Technological advancement: mobile internet penetration and decently decreased prices on mobile devices make African countries a mobile-first sector
2. Young audiences drive the industry, mostly male players of 18–35 y.o.
3. Sports passion: The audience gets engaged with both international and local sporting events
4. A tendency for regular participation: users may not deposit much, but they tend to play multiple times. On average, 35% of respondents participate once a week.

As of GeoPoll, the 2025 iGaming Africa landscape is formed by high-intent audiences from these three geos:

• South Africa, with a whopping 90% of respondents claim to be involved in online gaming.
• Uganda – 87%.
• Kenya (a previous leader) finishes third with 79% of respondents.
• Nigeria – 71%. 
• Finally, Ghana and Tanzania – 56%.

iGaming industry insights for African countries

1. SMS/USSD deposits are still popular when the internet is slow or less secure.
2. People prefer low-volatility games, but high deposits are also possible.
3. Longer session duration is a possibility for retaining people and providing additional bonuses.
4. High demand for responsible ads and policies.
5. Multiple illegal operators (a need for a thorough check of CPA networks and affiliates). 
6. Despite decent internet coverage, cities and states outside the main metropolitan areas still suffer from low speeds, which makes fast and friendly landing pages the #1 priority.
7. Young audience with a goal to get rich quickly: This creates new challenges as providers need to educate players and comply with player protection principles.

Major advertising platforms can block iGaming marketing campaigns in seconds, as they fully rely on algorithms. Adsterra offers relevant traffic from Africa, Asia, North America, and the EU, along with a caring approach to your iGaming ads. With both automation and human verification, you can reach target audiences with fewer risks of getting restricted.

Top iGaming trends in Asia

Though Asia has always been on our radars, it now serves more diverse and rich opportunities. People across Asian geos are big fans of online games and sports activities. One of the main tendencies of the past year is a rise of skill-demanding games like fantasy sports, which will be massively advertised in the future. Emerging technologies make Asia one of the most powerful eSports hubs, as well.

Latest iGaming trends in Asian markets

1. New hubs with players who are ready to play regularly (The Philippines and Vietnam) and invest big money (Japan).
2. Thanks to cheap mobile technologies, more opportunities for marketing in India, including high-stake activities.
3. Crucial changes in laws. For instance, The Bangladeshi High Court has told the government to set up a committee to stop celebrity promotions on social media, TV, and radio. Regulators will stand for responsible and healthy promotions.
4. New player bases with a strong demand for mobile payments, especially through digital wallets.
5. Brands and iGaming marketing agencies will need to pay more attention to cultural nuances and taboos: no more “one-size-fits-all” solutions.

iGaming marketing strategies of the near future

Providers switch to more informative and efficient player acquisition models. Historically, the iGaming sector was SEO-oriented. However, we see a significant influx of paid traffic paired with new sources of players.

With proven cost-reduction tools like CPA goal auto-optimization, they also look for a more tailored approach to tracking conversions.

Marcin Kumega’s forecast for the iGaming sector embraces several crucial aspects.

User acquisition models steer towards transparency

New rules and high standards force professionals to explore new features to build reports. One of the trending approaches in the gaming industry is improving the way advertisers attribute conversions. With multiple channels in the player acquisition funnel, operators face the challenge of tracking the efficiency of these.

We’ve been used to last-click player attribution—the final conversion in the user flow. There is a tendency to count multiple events within one channel or even multiple channels. Voluum is now leveraging a toolset that allows pros to attribute conversions to different channels. iGaming affiliate marketing software also keeps evolving,

Traffic sources combination is a must

One of the best advertising techniques for the following years will be combining organic traffic with paid ads along with affiliate marketing. So, if earlier, some operators could tunnel their efforts using a couple of stable channels, the industry demands a shift:

• Brand promotion (mainly via direct paid media channels)
• Paid ads (PPC and advertising networks with a proven track record in iGaming)
• Affiliate programs
• Community enforcement
• SEO (both traditional SEO and search powered by artificial intelligence like AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini, and others)

iGaming inventory boost

There’s a major shift towards robust platforms powering iGaming operators to manage huge volumes of traffic. Programmatic ad networks are entering the market, allowing to:

• Streamline iGaming experiences (UX) across ad channels.
• Embrace entertainment-driven ad formats (dynamic content, Interstitials, social patterns)
• Incremental tests.
• Tailor attribution models depending on the operator’s objectives.
• Personalized experiences based on hyper-focused targeting or dynamic content to match individual preferences.

Apart from specific players like SmartX and Liftoff, we witness Google Ads showing an increasing interest in the iGaming niche. Native ad networks like Taboola change their inventory to fit the operators’ needs.

A pivot to mobile gaming experiences

It’s not only ads that are expected to peak but the whole industry of mobile gaming:

• The number of mobile applications will grow: iGaming operators are cloning their services from web platforms to lightweight mobile apps. 
• Mobile technologies for payment procedures: more and more solutions enable almost instant and secure transactions.
• Customization: advertising platforms tend to create flexible and native ad formats with higher rates of player engagement (e.g., Interstitials for iGaming traffic boost).
• More publishers will be switching to in-app traffic.
• Innovative features of DSP inventory will evolve: app-to-web projects along with classic app-to-app traffic.

African countries and India are the main drivers here, serving massive traffic and providing high-stake, mobile-first players. Thanks to low entry barriers (cheap smartphones & fast internet,) users can play games and support sports teams a few times a week. 

Igaming platforms are forced to enhance user experiences and analytics on mobiles when it comes to:

• Landing pages
• Registration process
• Payments
• Customer support
• Retention techniques
• Mobile impressions and conversions tracking

Affiliates need to use this opportunity to embrace mobile traffic from multiple sources, such as alternative ad networks with high-intent iGaming audiences.

The rise of social and tribal games

If we narrow the focus to the US, we notice how regulative changes affect the iGaming business along with player behavior. This geo shows both heavy regulatory changes and significant exemptions when it comes to games. Marketers should track two major trends as they can scale to other countries.

1. Social games. With social media taking over your lives, people tend to include similar interactions in everyday activities. Social games have the same mechanics as games of chance but don’t involve payments. Players can pay with virtual coins or other in-game currency. 
2. Tribal games have been localized in specific areas like New Mexico, Wisconsin, Arizona, and seven more. Now, these niche gaming houses go online and attract new audiences. We’ll see more such examples in 2025 and beyond.

These two trends demand new approaches from affiliate marketers: learning the social gaming mechanics, main triggers, and advantages. Marketers will need to resort to new traffic sources relevant to such audiences along with tailoring ad messages.

iGaming industry challenges and risks

Regulatory revisions in LatAm, African geos, and the European Union have put the iGaming spirit at risk. That’s the cornerstone of Wojciech Trzaska’s market outlook. In Germany, such over-regulations have the opposite effect. Instead of transparency and security, severe rules forced offshore games and iGaming companies to appear. Meanwhile, players will seek ways to bypass restrictions.

• There’s a need to rebalance compliance and the initial spirit of joy and competition to ensure players are protected but still have access to playing regularly and without surveillance.
• iGaming platforms must shift to entertainment and education rather than simply sell their products.
• Local regulations must align with culture and behavior patterns.
• There should be a unique ecosystem of fairness, trust, and transparency across countries.
• Games and iGaming need to rebuild their reputation to remove the stain of harmless activities.

Challenges in Asian and African gaming markets

Asian and African continents are now structuring the iGaming landscape, opening new markets and opportunities for companies and marketers.

Latin America’s gaming industry key insights

LatAm will incorporate more operational measures to ensure only legal iGaming platforms operate in the market. Brazil will lead in forming the iGaming regulatory landscape. Expert research highlights that the country has gone a long way in managing the iGaming niche, and other Latin American countries will need to adapt and adopt this experience.

One of the latest regulatory changes is depriving Rio de Janeiro’s Loterj of licensing brands to operate over the country. Those companies already licensed can’t now work outside the state. This means more control over games of chance and more transparency as a consequence of these measures.

Will Brazil become over-regulated? It doesn’t seem like that because all governments see the iGaming industry as a primary investor in their countries’ prosperity and profitability. For instance, the iGaming business in Argentina will soon reach $3.5B in revenues with its 8B players across the country. 

Argentina follows the key trend of removing unlicensed iGaming platforms and ensuring responsible gaming (e.g., biometrical age verification). The country moves towards regulatory centralization, shifting from state laws to all-encompassing ones.

General trends in Latin America

According to SIGMA’s iGaming Market Report, the following online gaming products are gathering pace:

1. Mobile gaming has outpaced live sports, creating new subniches.
2. Gamification or adding games or similar mechanics to traditional iGaming activities is now among the top trends.
3. Crush games seem to have lost the leadership in 2025.
4. Leave dealing competition will win a higher interest and engage more people.
5. AI-enhanced gaming has evolved enough to become a serious trend, but it still doesn’t have enough power to compete with live sports.

Global iGaming innovations: a broad outlook

The iGaming industry is undergoing a transformative shift fueled by:

• A growing demand for user-centric marketing strategies.
• The regulatory landscape will be shaped by more controversial regulatory changes.
• Technological innovations have propelled user acquisition and payment security.
• A need for advanced player attribution strategies that help track actions from multiple channels.

Let’s list some prevalent factors iGaming operators and affiliates will have to keep track of and integrate into their daily operations.

Cutting-edge technologies of personalization and player protection

• Artificial intelligence: Experts believe about 85% of iGaming platforms will soon use AI and AI-driven services for customer support.
• AI algorithms will be used for player protection (especially in the European digital identity framework) and fraud detection.
• Generative AI will enhance social gaming, facilitate in-game content personalization, and player retention tactics
• Augmented reality—while still rather a gimmick—will dominate the evolving eSports sector, providing an immersive gaming experience.

Mobile-first and alternative traffic sources

• Mobile gaming experiences. Mobile-first approaches will dominate, with web-to-app and app-to-app traffic strategies evolving. Publishers will steer towards mobile-native ads like In-Page Push and Social Bar. Meanwhile, mobile-only platforms will loop traffic and ad formats inside their ecosystems (Telegram).
• Alternative traffic sources: In regions with turbulent regulatory changes or multiple legislations, companies will seek alternative channels to level up their traffic. Such channels are mainly designed to match the vertical: Popunder traffic, In-Page Push Ads, Telegram Ads, and more. These platforms bring more transparency in terms of traffic volumes and meet all local requirements.

Latest trends in content and influencer marketing

• Video content and live streaming. Live experiences will continue evolving when it comes to demonstrating high winning chances, engaging users, or entertaining.
• Influencer partnerships: With iGaming SEO’s importance decreasing, influencer marketing will become one of the key marketing strategies. Influencers help brands connect with audiences and build trust much faster. However, with more iGaming platforms referring to influencer marketing, the legal framework will also be shaped by new challenges. Governments and officials will impose more restrictions on celebrities, athletes, and other influencers promoting iGaming.
• Affiliate marketing will experience a revival. Many iGaming platforms use affiliate networks as an additional promotional channel. But soon, it’ll become one of the top means of tailored campaigns with more quality traffic sources for iGaming affiliates appearing.

Immersive user experiences

• Virtual and augmented reality, when becoming more affordable, will open new sorts of activities (leave dealing during sporting events and fan contests during eSports matches).
• Native in-game advertising: ads will keep blending into gaming experiences, prompting users to engage in new games or grab and apply bonuses on the go. Programmatic platforms will allow operators to display ads on contextually relevant placements.

Localization and personalized experiences

• Location-based targeting and messages. iGaming operators will combine massive-traffic & tailored experiences. They will need to stay compliant with local regulations and remove districts where iGaming is not legalized. Ad message personalization will allow operators to tailor creatives to match cultural nuances and local preferences.
• Responsible gaming ad messages. Ad personalization will continue leading as a game-changing factor. Ad messages will include granular approaches to age groups. There will be more options to tailor creatives for responsible gaming requirements depending on the location.

Data-driven and automated marketing

• Advanced tracking and analytics. Advanced conversion trackers will become a serious competitive advantage for advertisers. Ad networks will need to provide easy integration with the most versatile tracking systems. 
• Automated ad optimization and traffic acquisition. iGaming operators and affiliate marketers will massively use automated rules for cost optimization, auction-based mechanics of media buying, and AI-driven bidding. 

Conclusion

The iGaming industry is an essential resource for economic boost and one of the paramount market drivers for many countries. Key trends of the iGaming business reveal unprecedented opportunities for local economies and companies, but only if they team up. Let’s promote responsible gaming principles, enhance player experiences, and make profits! Start today by choosing the flagship traffic source for your campaigns.

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