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How to really grow revenue in iGaming: the strategic role of Account Management
Written by Joss Webster, Head of Commercial
In iGaming, it’s easy to assume that revenue growth is driven by content. Better games. More features. Bigger portfolios. However, in a saturated market, that thinking no longer holds. Because the reality is this: revenue isn’t driven by what you build — it’s driven by how effectively it is positioned, promoted and prioritised.
And at the centre of that sits one of the most underestimated levers in the industry: Account Management.
One of the most important – and often overlooked realities – in iGaming is how heavily revenue is concentrated around visibility. Across several commercial roles on the supplier side of the industry, a consistent pattern emerged: a significant share, in some cases up to 70% of revenue, is generated from games positioned in the top fold of the casino lobby. That insight fundamentally changes how you think about growth. If your latest content isn’t visible, it simply doesn’t exist from a revenue perspective.
A common pattern in market expansion is to prioritise integration breadth by securing licenses, connecting aggregators, and maximising distribution reach. But being live is only the starting point. What really drives performance is what happens next: whether a game is visible, supported, and aligned with how players engage on that platform.
This becomes even more apparent when you consider that the most experienced casino managers, product teams, and suppliers cannot consistently predict which games will succeed. The industry likes to believe it can, but reality often proves otherwise.
During my time at Pragmatic Play, a title Joker Jewels was originally treated as a filler game — something to support the broader roadmap, rather than lead it. Yet over time, it became one of the most consistently high-performing games globally within the legacy portfolio, year after year.
There was no single feature that guaranteed its success.
No obvious innovation that set it apart at launch. What it did have was sustained visibility. It was positioned early, included in classic game categories, and given enough room for players to engage with it. That initial positioning created momentum and over time, performance followed. I saw this again years later when looking at a tier one operator’s top game list: the best performing titles were the branded and exclusive content that had seen the most sustained exposure across their core markets.
This is a critical point. Success in iGaming is not just about building the right game: it’s about giving that game the opportunity to succeed. And that opportunity is rarely created by product alone. It is driven by commercial execution.
Historically, Account Management has been seen as a support function: maintaining relationships, handling technical issues and ensuring smooth communication between supplier and operator. But in today’s market, the most effective suppliers now treat Account Management as a core revenue driver, responsible not just for maintaining partnerships, but for actively shaping performance.
This shift requires a different mindset. It means moving from reactive to proactive, from operational to commercial and from relationship-focused to performance-led.
A critical and often overlooked part of driving revenue is knowing exactly who to influence.
Placement decisions are rarely straightforward. Depending on the operator, game visibility may sit with a casino coordinator, a central casino team, or even C level. The latter particularly happens where long-term contractual deals are in place.
Effective Account Management requires mapping the organisation and tailoring the approach to the stakeholder — whether that’s a product-led demo to bring a game to life, or a data-driven case that aligns with commercial objectives. Betsson is a good example: despite having multiple casino teams across their global markets, it is the Head of Games who decides on new releases, and a small central team that controls placement.
But access alone is not enough. There is still a need to actively sell the product. There is often an assumption that a strong game will naturally perform, but in reality, even the best titles benefit from being properly introduced. That means showcasing new releases, explaining mechanics, and positioning the game in a way that aligns with the operator’s player base. Proactive engagement of this kind tends to be more impactful where it is less expected and that dynamic is worth factoring into any commercial strategy.
Data follows a similar pattern.
Too often, data is treated as retrospective reporting, something to explain what has already happened. In reality, it should be used to influence what happens next. Working closely with large operators, performance analysis often goes far beyond surface-level metrics by looking at player behaviour, value per market, and feature engagement. These insights can then be used to support positioning decisions and future roadmap planning.
For example, understanding that certain mechanics perform better in specific markets allows you to make a stronger case for placement. A highly volatile Joker-style game might resonate with Norwegian VIPs – that becomes a commercial argument for visibility with a Nordic facing operator. In this way, data moves from being descriptive to being persuasive.
At the same time, another dynamic is becoming increasingly clear. In a world increasingly driven by AI, data, and screen-based interaction, there is a growing tendency to rely on dashboards, calls, and automated reporting to manage relationships.
But the more digital the industry becomes, the more valuable real-world interaction is.
Quarterly Business Reviews conducted in person may feel almost old-fashioned today, yet they consistently deliver a different level of engagement. Conversations are more open, context is clearer, and alignment happens faster. What might take weeks of calls and emails can often be achieved in a single, focused discussion.
This view is becoming more common across the industry, and within broader AI discourse: as automation increases, human interaction becomes a premium experience.
As more functions become supported or replaced by AI, the suppliers who stand out will not be defined by data alone. They will be defined by the quality of their commercial relationships. Because while AI can optimise performance, it cannot replace trust.
Beyond data and relationships, incentive structures play an equally important role in driving performance. When used correctly they support performance, but timing is key. Offering heavy discounts too early can dilute value, particularly when games already benefit from strong initial positioning. A more effective approach is to protect the first phase of a launch, usually 7 days – and introduce targeted GGR discounts later depending on the position.
Alignment on costs and targets is equally important.
Too often, the operators’ casino teams focus on headline discounts — for example, pushing for 50% off without understanding the base rate or broader commercial terms. As contract rates move into low single digits, layering additional discounts can quickly undermine value. This highlights the need for Account Managers to fully understand and communicate agreed terms, ensuring that pricing is applied in a way that supports both performance and long-term sustainability.
Tiered revenue goals, combined with defined marketing contributions, ensure that both supplier and operator are working towards shared outcomes. This transforms the relationship from transactional to collaborative, with both sides invested in growth.
Even smaller strategic decisions can have an impact. Release timing, for example, is often overlooked. Many major suppliers launch new content on Thursdays to align with weekend traffic, but this creates a crowded environment as the largest operators launch that day. Releasing earlier in the week can improve visibility and reduce competition, allowing a game to establish itself before the peak period.
Internally, alignment between commercial and product functions remains an undervalued driver of performance. Across the industry, roadmap decisions are too often made without sufficient input from the market, without direct operator feedback, without visibility on competitor positioning, and without understanding what players are actually responding to. The result is a gap between what gets built and what gets played. Account Management is well-placed to close that gap, feeding market intelligence back into product decisions and ensuring roadmaps reflect real demand.
Ultimately, growth in iGaming is not universal, it is highly market-specific.
What works in one region may not translate to another. Successful suppliers recognise this and adapt accordingly, aligning their game selection, promotional activity, and commercial approach to local player behaviour.
What all of this points to is a broader shift in the industry. iGaming does not have a content problem. It has an execution gap. The pattern that emerges after enough time in this industry is rarely accidental: performance concentrates around a surprisingly small number of titles, and there are always reasons why. Those titles are visible, supported, and prioritised. In a saturated market, that is not a product decision. It is a commercial one. And that is where Account Management makes the difference.
