Utilise SEO to tackle highly regulated industries

Nikolas says: “In regulated sectors, like the iGaming space, companies need to keep SEO relevant and part of their strategy.

The iGaming industry is growing across all continents, and SEO shouldn't just be part of your campaign; it should be part of your infrastructure as a company.

It will still remain the number one growth factor. Despite all the LLMs, AI, applications, and all these things, SEO is still relevant and should still be relevant if you want to grow your company and succeed in 2026, especially in a very regulated market like iGaming.”

Firstly, what is iGaming?

“iGaming is essentially the online equivalent of a brick-and-mortar casino or sports betting company, which basically does everything online.

If you want to bet on your favourite team, like Arsenal or Manchester United (I support Arsenal, incidentally), you can do it online. You don't have to go to a betting shop or a brick-and-mortar location like a casino.

You can play online – whether it’s slots, poker, or whatever your game of preference might be.”

Beyond regulation, do you also have to factor in what is legal in certain jurisdictions, in terms of what you can focus on?

“Yes, partially. There are different regulations in different countries.

For example, some countries like Poland do not allow online casinos, whereas in the Czech Republic, where I am based, you do have online casinos.

That is just one example. There are a lot of things like this, especially when you're looking into a global market with different types of cultures, different regulations, and different platforms that users engage with.

For example, Google is obviously one of the major platforms in SEO (as it always has been), but it’s not the king everywhere. In Russia, you have Yandex. In Korea, you have Naver. You have TikTok and Reddit, which are also part of discovery in terms of search – especially for younger generations who are now adults and have started to gamble.

So, you have to consider which platforms are available where, and what is legal – both in terms of the products (either casinos or sportsbooks) and what you can do in terms of who you can target. Some countries have banned gambling completely, especially in Southeast Asia. Many countries, like Malaysia and Indonesia, have banned it.

Therefore, there are a lot of offshore casinos online, which would have an entirely different strategy that you could apply, as opposed to a normal regulated casino that operates in Europe, America, or other countries.”

What are some of the key differences between being an SEO in the iGaming industry versus other industries?

“One part is that regulation, since it is usually more heavily regulated than other industries.

That can also give you an advantage, though. For example, you have channels like PPC, which are not allowed to have ads in some markets, like Romania or other European markets. As an SEO, you can take advantage of that and do more work, because you don't have that relationship with PPC that you would have in other markets. In terms of your infrastructure, that means that SEO plays a more important role.

If you are using link building, it is a bit trickier in iGaming because of the nature of the industry. It’s harder to find regular and relevant publishers, and it’s harder to convince people to let you pay them to give you links than it is in other industries like travel or hospitality, even though they are also competitive.

Because it's gambling, they usually ask for more money, and there are other things like this that prevent you from using your SEO tactics as you would in another industry.”

Is entity optimization, and trying to appear in the knowledge graph/knowledge panels, still worthwhile?

“Yes, it's very important – especially now that you have new features in the SERPs, like AI overviews, and you have other platforms like ChatGPT, where everyone wants to be now. This basically means that you don't just have to optimize for crawlers anymore; you have to optimize for machine interpretation as well.

In terms of your entity, you need to use schema markup (which is just as relevant as before) to reinforce your entity. You need to shift your focus to writing more unsurfaced content, instead of just blabbing about the topic and showing off that you know something about it.

You need to optimize for featured snippets. You also need to consider the localised app store, metadata, and screenshots if you have an app in a local market.

With all of this together, you create an entity approach based on the brand that you have – and you want to reinforce your brand because it's still one of the most important factors in SEO, and it will continue to be so in 2026.”

How do you demonstrate that you are an authority within the niche?

“It's not just about ranking anymore; it's about being the source and being quoted.

Again, it's mostly about what type of content you publish and how you publish it.

The content that works really well at the moment is answering questions, similar to People Also Ask content. For example, in iGaming: ‘Is this gaming operator legal in this country?’ These are the types of questions that people are looking for.

Also, make it more conversational, like we're having a conversation now, instead of just writing an article or an essay like you would write at school. It should be more conversational for the user. That will be picked up more easily, especially by LLMs, AI overviews, and these types of platforms.

This is especially important if you have an affiliate website in iGaming, which relies heavily on content. They got hit hard by Google in the past few years, so this is very important to keep in mind. You should have more of this type of content, rather than just having articles and stuffing them with keywords.”

Is user-generated content as prevalent in iGaming as it is on other online gaming platforms?

“It is, but it depends on which country you are trying to appeal to.

If you have influencers or real people who want to take a video and upload it somewhere, there are some cultures or countries – like Indonesia, for example – where users like to be on their phone all the time and upload videos on TikTok, etc. Therefore, that content would relate to that market.

However, in some markets, they don't want to show off, they don't want to show their face, and they don't want to be involved. With user-generated content, maybe they would like to comment, but they would do it anonymously on Reddit or platforms like that. Again, it has more to do with the culture and the platforms.

For example, Reddit is more anonymous. However, it's not only about anonymity; it’s also about finding answers to your questions. It’s a platform that gives you verification. It helps you make sure that, whatever you were thinking about iGaming or the question you had about it, other people have as well. You're not crazy.

Again, it depends on the platform, the culture, and what resonates most.”

Are people using AI search engines in order to get recommendations for iGaming?

“Revenue growth is still much, much bigger in pure SEO. You still get more money that way, and the market share is still lower in LLMs, so you don't get as much traffic from them, but that’s because they provide a different type of reasoning.

They give you the answer directly, so people don’t see fit to click anywhere, because they have already found the answer that they wanted directly. Therefore, it is more of an impression-based model than the click-based model that you have with traditional SEO.

This could still be a channel for you to take advantage of, because you would get mentioned as a brand. For example, ‘Brand + X’ questions are important because your brand would be mentioned, people will remember you, and at some point, if they wanted to interact with you and they find you on Google search, they would click and continue.

However, they wouldn't do it as much on LLMs directly – on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or whichever they are using. It's more about information.”

Do you see that changing, or are iGaming users simply less likely to use ChatGPT to find a result?

“For now, the LLMs don’t engage as much with the iGaming industry, because of its nature – with regulation, etc. It's like the ugly duckling, or the black sheep in the family.

However, I know that ChatGPT has enabled some features where you can buy products directly from e-commerce sites within the platform, which is not something they have done with iGaming.

For now, they’re focusing more on other niches, but later on, it's very possible that we will see something similar. For example, people may be able to play directly within LLMs or go to their favourite slots directly within the SERP – they wouldn’t need to visit the website. I think that will happen very soon.”

What do you analyse with new iGaming clients, and what do they tend to be doing that could be improved?

“First, if they are planning to do an expansion, I ask them where that would be. I need to know if they're planning to expand, and if we're talking about global SEO. Are they aiming to do revenue diversification, or do they want to capture new demand because a regulation changed in some market, so they saw an opportunity to enter that market, for example?

These are things that we would need to establish. Also, some of the most important things are their resources. Do they have the actual resources to enter that market, create localised content, and have people who understand the culture and regulations? These are things that a brand or client needs to have in mind when they want to expand globally and enter another market.

Also, taking local preferences into consideration and what the domain strategy would be. If you have an affiliate website called onlinecasino.com, and you're only targeting English-speaking markets, and you need to create the equivalent translated version in Spanish, Italian, or French, these are all things that you need to talk with the client about. Do they have the capacity to do it?

It might be an idea that they have, where they want to go into this market because of X, Y, and Z, but do they actually have the capacity to do it? It’s about building resources, building the team that you would need, and all of these things that you would need to take into consideration with a client, before doing anything.”

Nikolas, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“Don’t copy-paste everything.

Just because you use a strategy on an English-only website, that doesn’t mean the same strategy will work in every other market – especially where the English language is not as popular, like in Asia, Africa, or South America, where Spanish is a major language.

You need to take into consideration local authority and mentality, rather than just copy-pasting one strategy and hoping that it might work. You need to take into consideration many different things about culture, regulation, and so on.”

Nikolas Monti-Potsolakis is Founder and CEO at Black Lantern Marketing, and he's an International SEO Consultant. Find out more over at NMPconsulting.co.