Online Poker Is Changing: New Markets, Formats & Communities

During AffPapa Madrid, our host Surya Palli had a conversation with Dmitry Starostenkov, CEO of Evenbeter, for Episode 49 of iGaming Real Talk.

Recorded as part of the 4th edition of The Real Roadshow 2026, the conversation went into online poker, affiliates, communities, emerging markets and why trust becomes so important when a B2B brand wants to grow beyond its core product.

Since this conversation was recorded, EvenBet Gaming has officially rebranded to Evenbeter. The new name reflects how the company has grown beyond its poker roots into a wider iGaming technology business.

Here’s what stood out.

Online poker is social, just in a different way

Before this conversation, Surya had recently played poker at a real table for the first time.

That created a simple question.

Poker feels very physical. You look at people. You watch how they react. You try to read the room.

So does the same experience really work online?

Dmitry believes it does, but not for every player.

Some players only want the real table experience. Others prefer playing online. And many move between both.

Online poker also has its own social side.

Players chat. They use forums. They discuss hands. They follow professional players and become part of poker communities.

The social experience did not disappear.

It simply moved online.

The thing that makes poker special can also slow its growth

One of the most interesting parts of the conversation was about skill.

Dmitry sees poker as different from most gambling products because players have something to learn.

They start with the basics.

Then they learn strategy, calculation, timing and how to make better decisions.

As Dmitry put it:

“It’s the beauty of poker.”

That learning curve can keep a player interested for a long time.

But Dmitry also sees a problem.

At some point, players may feel they have reached their level. There is less left to learn. The excitement can start to slow down.

That can happen to an entire market too.

Poker can grow very quickly in a country, reach a certain level and then stop growing at the same speed.

For operators, this creates an important question.

Where does the next wave of growth come from?

When one market slows down, you may need to find another

Dmitry sees two main ways to keep poker growing.

The first is new markets.

He pointed to regions such as Latin America and Africa, where online gaming is still developing and new groups of players are coming online.

The second is changing the product itself.

New poker formats can give existing players something different to try.

Evenbeter has been experimenting with new formats for this reason.

The idea is simple.

If the normal version of a product starts reaching its limit, growth may have to come from either new players or a new experience.

For poker operators, both may be needed.

In poker, affiliates can drive a huge part of the business

At an affiliate conference, we obviously had to talk about affiliates.

And one number stood out.

According to Dmitry:

“Affiliates can generate up to 90% of the poker traffic.”

But poker affiliation does not always work like normal casino affiliation.

A strong poker affiliate may be a professional player with a loyal following.

It may be a poker forum.

It may be a community where hundreds or thousands of players talk about strategy, games and operators every day.

Those relationships can become very powerful.

If a respected poker player tells their community where they play, many people may follow.

The traffic comes from trust first.

The link comes later.

Poker was using influencers before everyone called them influencers

Influencer marketing feels like a newer part of iGaming.

For poker, it really isn't.

Well-known poker players have been helping brands attract players for years.

Dmitry used Tony G and TonyBet as one example.

Tony G already had a name in poker. So when he invited people to play on his platform, there was already trust behind the message.

Today, that model has become much bigger.

Operators no longer need to work only with huge names.

A streamer with a few hundred loyal followers may still bring useful traffic.

That makes micro-influencers interesting, especially in a game where communities can be very close.

For operators, the size of the audience may not always be the most important number.

How much that audience trusts the person can matter more.

A strong poker affiliate is often really a strong community

Dmitry kept coming back to community.

Some of the strongest poker affiliates are not simply websites that send clicks.

They have forums.

They have regular users.

Players talk to each other and stay active for years.

That gives these affiliates something much harder to build than traffic.

They have loyalty.

For a poker affiliate manager, Dmitry believes working with these communities can be very important.

You are not only buying acquisition.

You are entering a group where people already know each other and already care about the product.

Evenbeter grew because customers kept asking for more

Evenbeter has been known for poker for more than two decades.

So when the company started expanding into casino, sportsbook and a wider turnkey platform, Surya wanted to understand why.

The answer was not that Evenbeter suddenly decided it wanted to become everything.

It happened step by step.

Some customers came to Evenbeter wanting to launch a poker business.

But especially for startups, buying a platform from one company, poker from another company and then waiting for everything to be integrated created too much work.

They wanted something simpler.

So Evenbeter built a turnkey option.

Then those customers wanted casino games.

Later, they wanted sportsbook.

Over time, what started as a poker-focused platform became much wider.

Sometimes product expansion starts with a strategy document.

Sometimes customers simply keep asking you the same question.

Building another brand sounds easier than building another reputation

Evenbeter also tried putting its wider platform under a separate brand called FlexPlay.

But the team eventually brought the product back under Evenbeter.

Why?

Running two brands meant two different marketing efforts, different budgets and the need to build awareness again.

More importantly, Evenbeter already had something valuable.

People knew the name.

There was already trust in the market.

Surya immediately connected with this from a B2B marketing point of view.

Building a new logo is easy.

Building years of trust behind that logo is not.

For Evenbeter, using the brand equity it had already built made more sense than starting again from zero.

Trust may be the real B2B advantage

This idea appeared in different parts of the conversation.

Affiliates need trust from their communities.

Players follow poker professionals they trust.

Operators choose technology companies they trust.

And suppliers have to be careful about offering services outside the areas where they really know what they are doing.

Evenbeter, for example, helps some new poker brands connect with affiliates, but Dmitry was clear that the company does not position itself as a full affiliate marketing agency.

That honesty matters.

Sometimes saying this is what we are good at can build more trust than trying to sell every possible service.

Notable Insights

• Poker's learning curve helps keep players interested, but it can also make mature markets reach a plateau.
• New regions such as Latin America and Africa could become important for the next stage of poker growth.
• New formats may help operators keep existing poker players interested.
• Affiliates can drive a very large share of poker acquisition.
• The strongest poker affiliates often have real communities behind them.
• Influencer marketing has been part of poker for much longer than many other iGaming verticals.
• Evenbeter's move into a wider turnkey platform came from customer demand.
• In B2B iGaming, an existing trusted brand can be far more valuable than starting a new one from zero.

What stayed with us after this conversation was that poker growth is not only about finding more traffic.

It is about finding the right communities, entering the right markets, keeping the product interesting and building enough trust for people to follow you into something new.

And that leaves an interesting question for operators.

If your current market stopped growing tomorrow, would you look for new players, build a new product, or enter a completely new region?

As part of the 4th edition of The Real Roadshow 2026, Episode 49 was recorded at AffPapa Conference Madrid and is brought to you by Evoverse, providing custom crypto casino source code solutions, and Wicked Games, creating slot games that slap.