⚡️ iGaming weekly roundup: this time with a touch of absurdity

Hello everyone! Kicking off a new workweek — hopefully productive and free of bad news.

📌 Legal highlights
— Denmark is preparing new gambling advertising regulations: integrations into sports broadcasts, ads featuring celebrities, and content targeting young audiences will be banned.
— Austria is extending its state gambling monopoly until 2027.
— Belarus is legalizing crypto banks — an important step for payment infrastructure and the iGaming ecosystem.

📌 Important
— The EU Court has allowed the application of local law in disputes with offshore iGaming operators. This is a major precedent for the market.

📌 Counting money — no saving here
— Paraguay: market turnover in 2025 reached $32.6 million (+22.9% YoY).
— Brazil: bookmakers invested $260 million in marketing over the year.
— Portugal: iGaming revenue in Q3 2025 totaled €297 million (+11.6%).
— France: operators’ marketing budgets in 2026 will grow to €785 million.

📌 Ad platforms & restrictions
— From January 21, Google Ads bans advertising for rummy and daily fantasy sports in India.
— Kick has restricted gambling streams for Russian-speaking audiences.

📌 Scandals, intrigue, investigations
— Donald Trump reported the detention of a player who earned over $400,000 betting on the arrest of Maduro on Polymarket.
— A link to Fonbet was found on the official website of an Orthodox festival in Belarus.
— Estonia exempted online casinos from taxes in 2026 due to a drafting error in the law — instead of reducing the rate, the tax was effectively set to zero.

👉 Now it’s your turn: what good news are you waiting for? Personal, work-related, or from the iGaming world — share in the comments, let’s imagine something positive.

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🔥 ICE has kicked off — and we’re already there!

The conference has officially started, and the 3SNET team is on site, ready for live and productive networking.

Look for the girls in blue 3SNET shirts — come say hi without hesitation: let’s meet, talk, and connect ❤️‍🔥

👉 To make sure we meet, here’s the link to schedule a meeting.

⚡️ — if you’re already at ICE
😂 — if Barcelona is still just a dream

😂 iGaming in Estonia: the tax was canceled… by mistake

In January 2026, Estonia had a rare regulatory fail: due to a single wording issue in the law, online casinos were formally left without a tax for the entire year.

The amendments were supposed to reduce the tax burden, but in the final version the tax was tied only to games of skill — while games of chance (i.e. all classic gambling) simply fell out of the legal text.

The mistake has already been acknowledged, and the law will be urgently fixed. Still, the case is illustrative: even in one of Europe’s most precise jurisdictions, a single line of text can mean millions lost. Regulation is always about the details.

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What do you think — coincidence?
⚡️ — a pure bureaucratic fail
😂 — a bit too convenient, don’t you think?

🔥 iGaming: how the industry grew up

Over 30 years, iGaming has evolved from clunky dial-up websites to a global industry with licenses, regulators, and AI embedded in almost every second product. If we simplify it, the industry went through three key eras.

📌 The 1990s: the first online casinos and the “wow” effect
The internet was slow, the design was rough, but the idea was revolutionary: gambling for real money without leaving home.
The first software and payment providers appeared — Microgaming, Cryptologic. Antigua became one of the first jurisdictions to issue online casino licenses, and the market started growing with almost no rules.

📌 2003–2008: the poker boom and global money
The real explosion came with online poker. Chris Moneymaker’s story — winning $2.5 million — turned poker into a mass phenomenon. ESPN broadcast tournaments, millions of people joined poker rooms worldwide.

📌 The 2010s: the end of chaos and the era of regulation
In the 2010s, iGaming entered a phase where survival and legalization mattered more than growth at any cost. A wave of regulation hit the industry hard: some operators and affiliates couldn’t handle the pressure, lost markets, and shut down. But new players emerged, building businesses around licenses, compliance, and local rules. For iGaming, this was both the collapse of the old “wild” model and the birth of a full-fledged global digital industry.

👉 A detailed article is now live on the blog. Besides the history of iGaming, it covers industry structure and segmentation, the market, payment solutions, and more. Read it here.

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⚡️ CPA Quiz

If you work in iGaming or affiliates, these questions should be answered without hesitation.

Let’s go 👉

🇩🇪 Germany picks the hits: which slots keep players’ attention

German iGaming is about discipline, clear math, and trust in brands. Stability, familiar mechanics, and games that can “go the distance” are highly valued here. The top 10 illustrates this perfectly.

📌 Top 10 slots in Germany (according to Blask)

Gates of Olympus 1000 — Pragmatic Play
Big Bass Splash — Pragmatic Play
Gates of Olympus — Pragmatic Play
Book of the Fallen — Pragmatic Play
Sugar Rush — Pragmatic Play
Big Bass Bonanza — Pragmatic Play
The Dog House Megaways — Pragmatic Play
5 Lions Megaways — Pragmatic Play
Book of Ra Deluxe 6 — Greentube
Wanted Dead or a Wild — Hacksaw Gaming

✔️ What this says about the GEO
— Pragmatic Play almost completely dominates: the market is oriented toward large, well-established providers.
— Book mechanics and Megaways remain consistently popular — players like clear structure and a sense of control.
— The Big Bass series holds strong as a “working classic.”
— Hacksaw and Greentube appear more selectively — for a more experienced, niche audience.

👉 Want to understand how to work with German traffic without mistakes and unnecessary risks? In our Germany GEO review, we break down regulation, restrictions, player behavior, and formats that perform. Head to the blog for practical analytics for affiliates.

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💸 Fantasy sports — a grey area or an underrated gold mine?

If you’ve been around gambling or betting for a while, you’ve definitely heard the term fantasy sports. But many still treat it as “soft betting” or a niche pastime — and by doing so, miss out on real money.

And that’s a mistake. Fantasy sports is a standalone vertical with billion-dollar turnovers, a strong audience, and much softer regulation — especially in the US, Canada, India, Brazil, and Europe.

📌 In the new article, we break down:
— what fantasy sports are and how they actually work
— how fantasy fundamentally differs from betting and esports
— why regulators treat this model differently
— why this niche is attractive for affiliates and operators
— which GEOs, formats, and traffic channels perform best

This will be useful both for newcomers who are just starting to explore iGaming beyond slots and sportsbooks, and for experienced players looking for diversification, higher LTV, and more sustainable monetization models.

👉 If you look at the market strategically rather than narrowly, fantasy sports are definitely worth keeping on your radar. The full breakdown is already on the blog.

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🔥 The future of crypto casinos: where the money is for affiliates

Crypto is no longer just a deposit method — UX, trust, transaction speed, and even new partnership models are being built around the wallet. Users are getting used to a world where the wallet is the key, stablecoins are everyday money, and trust is formed through transparent mechanics. In 10 years, these products won’t be an “alternative” — they’ll be the market norm.

📌 In the new article, we break down:
— why crypto casinos are a long-term trend
— how the market evolved from Bitcoin casinos to Web3-first products
— which trends will shape the market through 2035
— how the audience is changing and what this means for affiliates
— where the money is — and where the risks are

If you’re in iGaming for the long run and thinking in terms of strategy and assets, this deep dive is worth reading.


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💸 10% discount on LikeVPS hosting for new customers

If you need a stable VPS or dedicated server without unpleasant surprises in speed or uptime, LikeVPS offers a solid option with a discount.

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📌 What’s included:
— NVMe disks
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— Unlimited traffic
— Basic DDoS protection included
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🌍 Locations:
— Netherlands — EU and international traffic
— USA — North and South America
— Russia — CIS and Eastern Europe

✔️ How to apply:

1. Go to the LikeVPS website
2. Choose a VPS or a dedicated server
3. Enter the promo code NEW_DEV10 at checkout
4. The discount is applied instantly

24/7 support, available in Russian and English.
Payment options include cards, QIWI, YooMoney, and others.

If you’re looking for hosting that just does its job and doesn’t distract you from working on your product, LikeVPS is definitely worth considering.

👉 More promo codes for operators and affiliates are available in the promo codes section.


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⚡️ Adult Slots in iGaming: a quiet niche that earns consistently

Adult slots are one of the oldest and, at the same time, most underestimated segments of iGaming. They’re rarely discussed at conferences and almost never shown in “white” case studies, yet they keep living for years, getting rebranded and consistently generating revenue.

📌 What adult casinos offer:
— focus on impulsive deposits
— fast user response
— crypto-friendly payments
— direct access to adult traffic

➕ For affiliates, this means one simple thing: LTV is rarely record-breaking, but you get fast money and a solid diversification tool.

➖ The downsides are clear: harder to scale, higher reputational risks, brands change more often. That’s why this niche requires a careful, compliant approach and proper license checks.

👉 Where and why adult casinos perform well, how to drive traffic to them, and what prospects this niche has — read our new article.

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