Gary Francis, ICONIC21: “We want to lean into what we do best: personalisation”

Gary Francis previews ICONIC21’s expansion strategy and priority markets ahead of SBC Summit Lisbon.

Key takeaways:

• ICONIC21 has expanded its portfolio from live casino into RNG, slots and original formats including HiLo and Keno.
• iDealer Boulevard Blackjack will be one of ICONIC21’s key products at SBC Summit Lisbon.
• The company positions personalisation as a core element of its offering for operators.
• Canada, Portugal and Italy are among ICONIC21’s priority markets for the next 12 to 18 months.
• Virtual games have become one of ICONIC21’s strongest-performing categories.

Exclusive interview.- ICONIC21 is expanding its casino offering with new RNG content, slots and original formats while keeping live casino at the heart of its strategy. In an exclusive interview with Focus Gaming News, Gary Francis, director of business development at ICONIC21, outlined how personalisation, development flexibility and expansion into regulated markets are shaping the company’s next phase.

ICONIC21 has rapidly expanded beyond live casino into slots, virtual games, and original formats such as HiLo and Keno. How is the company managing its core live service with this larger content plan, and what input has it received from operators?

For us, the wider content plan and the live casino business started from the same principle: start with what operators need and build from there. We balance the live service with the larger content plan by looking at exactly that. In practice, that means we don’t work from a fixed roadmap that gets handed down regardless of market conditions. Operators come to us with growth targets, product gaps, or specific commercial challenges. Our job is to understand those requirements and respond quickly. Sometimes that means developing around a detailed brief. Sometimes it means solving a problem alongside the operator. Sometimes it’s a gap we’ve identified ourselves through portfolio analysis or market demand.

The reason we can expand across live casino, RNG, slots and original formats without compromising service is that the infrastructure behind the products is built for flexibility. We run parallel development pipelines and modular frameworks that let us move quickly without constantly starting from scratch.

From an operator perspective, that means expansion isn’t a distraction from live casino. It’s the same operating model applied across a broader portfolio. The goal remains the same: identify what’s missing and deliver it faster than a traditional roadmap allows.

“We don’t work from a fixed roadmap that gets handed down regardless of market conditions.”

Gary Francis, director of business development at ICONIC21.

Which new product or feature are you most eager to present or talk about at SBC Summit Lisbon, and how does it address operators’ present demands for player engagement or differentiation?

The product I’ll be spending the most time discussing in Lisbon is iDealer Boulevard Blackjack.

iDealer Boulevard Blackjack takes our AI-powered dealer and places her in a completely different environment inspired by neon-lit city streets, palm-lined boulevards, luxury cars and urban nightlife. 

This showcases how far the AI-powered dealer experience can be customised. Appearance, voice, personality traits and communication style can all be adapted to create a distinct identity. That’s increasingly valuable for operators looking for ways to stand apart without rebuilding products from the ground up.

There’s also an important distinction in how we view iDealer. It isn’t trying to replace live casino, and it doesn’t pretend to be a human dealer. It’s an RNG product. We see it as a third category that sits between traditional RNG content and the live casino experience. 

Alongside Boulevard, we’re also looking forward to discussing titles such as Mythic Link: Monkey King and the upcoming Gravity Poker launch.

Dedicated studios and high levels of customisation have been a strong part of your proposition. How are you evolving this offering for different market tiers and regulatory environments?

This depends heavily on the individual operator and what they need. 

A dedicated studio gives an operator control over table types, game count, visual identity and more, all in a way a shared network table simply can’t. Operators typically pursue that level of customisation to build brand loyalty and meet specific player demand, and the degree to which they use it is largely their call. Our role is to work alongside them: matching the studio’s scale to their tier, and staying aligned with the regulatory requirements of the markets they operate in. Game types and table count are chosen deliberately, based on the operator’s expected commercial performance and target audience, rather than applied as a fixed template across every partnership.

Priority markets and regions over the next 12 to 18 months

Our focus remains firmly on regulated markets where we see long-term opportunities for operators and providers alike.

We’re currently working through licensing processes in several markets. In Canada, Ontario and Alberta stand out as near-term priorities. In Europe, Portugal and Italy are next in line, with more in progress. Beyond that, the Americas more broadly, both North and South, are worth watching closely over the coming months, as regulatory movement across the continent continues to open up.

“Our focus remains firmly on regulated markets where we see long-term opportunities for operators and providers alike.”

Gary Francis, director of business development at ICONIC21.

How do you see the role of “instant” and virtual games evolving within casino lobbies, and where does ICONIC21 want to position itself in that space?

The interest right now is in simplicity. Clean UI/UX, fast-paced games, and straightforward gameplay fall into focus more than ever before. We’ve grown our virtual games vertical quickly in response to that demand, and it’s consistently been one of our strongest-performing categories. Going forward, we want to keep building on that, while continuing to experiment with new formats. 

At the same time, we want to lean into what we do best across every vertical, which is personalisation. Making these games genuinely reflect an operator’s brand rather than sitting in the lobby as generic content. That distinction matters for brand loyalty. A personalised instant game reinforces an operator’s identity every time a player sees the lobby in a way that network content would not.