Inaugural SPARK 2026 Six Weeks Away as Sofia Prepares to Host Software and Payments Summit

Southeast Europe’s gaming industry gets a new addition to its calendar in six weeks, when the inaugural SPARK, short for Software, Payments, Affiliates, Revenue Kickoff, 2026 opens in Sofia, Bulgaria, on 19 and 20 October. The event puts product, payments, affiliate strategy and compliance directly in front of the operators, affiliates and providers navigating the region, where organisers note there is more at stake than market growth alone.

Key Highlights

• Inaugural SPARK 2026 runs 19 and 20 October in Sofia, Bulgaria

• Day One covers product, payments and acquisition, including retention over acquisition and live ops as a revenue engine

• Day Two shifts to scaling with confidence, opening with a keynote on the move from search engine optimisation to AI driven answer engines

• Confirmed speakers include Andreas Ioannou of Skyrocket Marketers Agency, Hanna Plachkova of The Persona Lab, and iGaming consultant Henk Wolff

• Delegate, sponsorship and exhibition packages remain available through Eventus International

Day One: Product, Payments and Acquisition

Proceedings open with a keynote on the trends, regulation and strategy shaping product, payments and affiliates across the region, a timely focus given that acquiring a new player can cost several times more than retaining an existing one, with payment experience alone remaining a leading factor in operator choice. Sessions across the day move through retention over acquisition, live ops as a revenue engine, the evolving role of retail gaming in a digital first market, payments as a conversion lever, and the challenge of balancing compliance with user experience across multiple jurisdictions.

Day Two: Scaling With Confidence

Confidence in scaling becomes the focus on day two, opening with a keynote on the shift from search engine optimisation to AI driven answer engines. Sessions explore the changing role of affiliates, post SEO acquisition strategies, what is genuinely working in modern iGaming operations, responsible AI in marketing under the EU AI Act, and the balance between proactive and reactive compliance, closing with a session on translating the event’s takeaways into lasting, resilient growth.

Retention, Not Acquisition, Is Where the Money Sits

Henk Wolff, an iGaming consultant speaking at SPARK 2026, argued that retention, not acquisition, is where the real money is being left on the table. “New operators spend their entire budget acquiring players and nothing on keeping them, then they wonder why the numbers do not add up,” he said. “More than 85 percent of casino revenue comes from recurring players, not first deposits. A player who hears nothing from you after signing up does not come back, he just moves on to the next operator that does talk to him. That is the biggest leak in the industry, and new operators have it, plenty of established ones have it too.” At SPARK 2026, Wolff said he will show what retention marketing actually does to an operation’s bottom line.

AI Is Rewriting the Rules Fast

Andreas Ioannou, Chief Executive Officer of Skyrocket Marketers Agency, described the company’s work building AI chatbots for iGaming businesses that handle customer questions and support players around the clock across multiple languages, tailored to individual business needs. Hanna Plachkova of The Persona Lab said the pace of change makes events like SPARK essential: “So much is shifting right now. AI alone is rewriting the rules, and it is easy to fall behind. That is exactly why events like SPARK matter, they are where you catch the trends early, find real solutions and take back things that help your company grow.” She added that her goal is to help the audience turn the biggest insights from the two days into specific, actionable next steps.

Compliance as Strategy, Not an Afterthought

Chrysothemi Valanidou of Startwise Ltd said regulation in iGaming is constantly evolving and businesses need to understand how regulatory requirements translate into practical, sustainable decisions, not just keep up with them. She plans to share insight from her experience in anti money laundering, regulatory compliance and the betting industry, and to discuss how businesses can treat compliance as part of a wider growth strategy. Mark McGuinness of CreateFuture framed the same idea from a governance angle: “Compliance rarely costs performance, retrofitting does. The teams that design governance in from the start keep shipping, while the ones bolting it on later end up unpicking systems that already work.” That, he said, is the conversation he wants to have at SPARK 2026.

Registration and Press Details

With six weeks remaining, organisations still have time to put their brand in front of Southeast Europe’s gaming community, connect with potential partners and build relationships with key industry contacts through the available delegate, sponsorship and exhibition packages. Registration for the inaugural SPARK 2026 is open at eventus international.com/spark. For sponsorship or exhibition enquiries, contact Lou Mari Burnett, Chief Operating Officer at Eventus International. SPARK 2026 takes place 19 and 20 October in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Frequently Asked Questions

The TCB View

Launching a brand new event into an already crowded Southeast European gaming calendar is a bet on timing, and SPARK’s agenda suggests organisers picked a genuinely current one. Pairing a retention over acquisition keynote with a session on the shift from search engine optimisation to AI driven answer engines treats two separate industry anxieties as one problem: the old playbooks for finding and keeping players are both breaking down at once. Whether an inaugural show can pull senior operators away from established regional fixtures usually comes down to the speaker list rather than the programme, and naming consultants willing to make pointed, specific claims on stage, rather than safe generalities, is a reasonable way to try.