EVENTS

What Operators Were Talking About at iGB Live London

Another iGB Live is behind us, and first of all, thank you to everyone who took the time to meet the UBIDEX team in London.

As always, the most valuable part of any event isn't the presentations or the exhibition floor. It's the conversations. The chance to hear what operators are focusing on, what challenges they're facing, and what priorities are shaping their plans for the months ahead.

Over two busy days, we met with operators, CRM teams, retention specialists, and marketing leaders from across the iGaming industry. And while every business has its own priorities, several themes kept coming up throughout our conversations.

iGB London 2026

Existing players are getting more attention

One thing that stood out this year was how much focus operators are putting on their current player base.

For years, most growth conversations in iGaming naturally revolved around acquisition. But at iGB Live, we found ourselves talking much more about engagement, retention, player value, and lifecycle growth.

The question wasn't simply how to acquire more players. It was how to keep players engaged longer, increase their value over time, and build stronger retention strategies around the audience operators already have.

In many ways, it feels like the industry is becoming more focused on maximizing existing opportunities rather than constantly chasing new ones.

iGB London 2026

More touchpoints, more opportunities

Another topic that came up surprisingly often was player reach.

Nobody is questioning the importance of CRM, email, or push notifications. They're still the foundation of retention for most operators. At the same time, many teams openly discussed a challenge that's familiar to almost everyone in the industry: over time, some players simply become harder to reach through owned channels alone.

That's why conversations around additional touchpoints, player visibility, and retention reach appeared in meeting after meeting. Not because operators want to replace their existing channels, but because they want more opportunities to stay connected with players throughout the lifecycle.

For us, this was especially interesting to hear because it closely aligns with what we see every day at UBIDEX. The most successful retention strategies rarely rely on a single channel. They create multiple opportunities to reconnect with players when engagement starts to decline.

iGB London 2026

Reactivation is moving closer to retention

A few years ago, retention and reactivation often felt like separate conversations.Today, they increasingly feel like two parts of the same strategy.
Many operators we spoke with are paying much closer attention to inactive and low-engagement players. Not as a separate segment to revisit once a quarter, but as an ongoing part of player lifecycle management.
The challenge isn't identifying inactive players. The challenge is finding efficient and scalable ways to bring them back at the right time and through the right channels.
That's why reactivation came up so often during discussions about retention. Operators are no longer looking at these areas in isolation. They're looking for ways to build a more consistent player journey from first deposit through long-term engagement.

UBIDEX team at iGB London 2026

Final thoughts

If there was one thing we took away from iGB Live this year, it's that retention continues to become a bigger part of the growth conversation across the industry.

Operators are thinking more about player value, lifecycle growth, engagement, and reactivation than ever before. And for the UBIDEX team, it was great to be part of those discussions.

Thanks again to everyone who met us in London. We're looking forward to continuing the conversation.

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