AI in iGaming: Unlocking Opportunities while Addressing Ethical Concerns

The pervasiveness of AI has been established in all key economic sectors, but the iGaming industry [a key contributor to Malta’s GDP] remains a fascinating outlier with a polarised adoption rate. Some companies have fully embraced AI while others remain skeptical. However, a simplistic understanding of AI transformation can lead to pitfalls, and a successful implementation requires an agile mindset and a leadership team capable of making data-driven decisions.

EBO, in partnership with iGaming leader BMIT Technologies, has leveraged AI to enhance the communication between players and operators. The journey has taught us crucial lessons about avoiding human bias, incorporating feedback loops, leveraging data, and using a progressive rollout approach. Today, our AI solutions are crucial for customer engagement and provide valuable insights to help the iGaming industry make informed decisions.

The iGaming industry is rapidly evolving, driven by the need for better customer service and reduced costs. Players expect a proactive, tailored experience, and AI can deliver this by collecting contextual player data to uncover patterns and needs. As players’ expectations for instant, multi-language, multi-channel service continue to rise, AI’s ability to process natural language with increasing accuracy presents a huge opportunity for businesses to increase efficiency and serve players better.

In the future, the iGaming industry will see a significant change in the workforce and a restructuring of the supply chain. The impact on acquisition and engagement will also be significant, with AI enabling operators to profile, target, and sign up new players in an omni-channel environment and fostering ongoing, proactive dialogue with customers.

AI is also improving the gaming experience for players by enhancing retention and creating a safer responsible-gaming environment. Improved service leads to better player satisfaction, longer retention cycles, and a higher Customer Lifetime Value. AI and neuroscience are also helping to identify problem gambling early and communicate with customers through Virtual Agents to tackle any emerging unsafe patterns.

The biggest challenge holding AI back in the iGaming industry is trust. AI needs to earn the universal confidence of all stakeholders, and this can only be achieved through a societal engagement framework that emphasises ethical, lawful, repeatable, explainable, and robust processes.

As AI becomes more intelligent and less artificial, it will rely more on top-down reasoning that resembles human thought processes, increasing its relevance in previously unsuitable scenarios. However, the ethical considerations of AI cannot be ignored. The rapid pace of technological innovation can lead to unintended consequences, and it is crucial to have a clear ethical framework in place to ensure that AI is used in a responsible and sustainable manner.

AI presents a huge opportunity for the iGaming industry to enhance customer experience, improve efficiency, and increase profits. However, it is mandatory to address ethical concerns prior to deployment as this will ensure that AI is used in a responsible and sustainable manner to build trust and ensure long-term success.