Dmitry Starostenkov, EvenBet Gaming: “We tried to cut everything unnecessary from poker and keep the good things”

Shows & conferences - 26 November, 2025

During the latest edition of SiGMA Central Europe 2025, Focus Gaming News spoke with Dmitry Starostenkov, CEO of EvenBet, about the company’s new product EvenBet Spins, how it simplifies poker for casino and sportsbook operators, the testing and market response so far, and the roadmap to keep innovating in a crowded igaming landscape.

Starostenkov explained that EvenBet has long been focused on helping casinos and sportsbooks add a poker vertical. Operators have many reasons to be interested: “They hear their players, they’re asking about ‘where’s poker?’” and they want to “extend their portfolio to provide wider choice of different games.” Crucially, they also know that “poker is a great tool for retention and working with communities and ambassadors,” so “they have plenty of reasons to add [the] poker vertical into their operations.”

However, he noted that many operators are wary. “They don’t know much about poker operations and they know that it’s complicated,” he said. Running poker “requires them to hire a team, to teach their support [and] their management how to work with this vertical,” and there are “operational risks, frauds and all the complexities connected with operating this vertical.” Faced with this balance of pros and cons, some operators hesitate to move.

To address this gap, EvenBet has developed EvenBet Spins, a new format designed to keep the essence of poker while stripping out operational complexity. “We developed this new product EvenBet Spins,” Starostenkov said. “We have tried to cut everything unnecessary from poker games which adds complexity and keep the good things from poker like competitiveness, skill‑based game and player‑to‑player interaction.” The result is a hybrid: “From one side it’s still the same poker game… they compete with each other, they communicate. But from [the] other side it has a lot of features of [a] casino game.”

He described EvenBet Spins as “easy to get in, very quick, very engaging”, with short, slot‑like sessions. “Seven‑minute sessions in average, quick sessions and big multipliers,” he said. When players start a game, “they see the spinning wheel and they get multiplier starting from just 2x but up to 2,000x.” That structure offers “a chance to win much more” and “always motivate[s] them,” combining the familiarity and speed of casino games “with the strategy of poker.”

Starostenkov framed the product as a way to make poker accessible to operators who are not traditional poker rooms. “We believe [it] would help casino and sports betting operators to start with [the] poker vertical,” he said, acting as a “first step to try this vertical and understand whether it fits with the ecosystem or not.” Rather than adding layers of features, the innovation is rooted in simplification. “Typically how you can innovate in our today’s world – you either add something… or you cut everything and make it simple,” he noted. “We decided in this case we cut the maximum and then we reach the simplicity and engagement level of casino games.”

The concept has already gone through early validation. “In October we carried a few closed‑door sessions with operators and platforms and we gathered first feedback from them,” Starostenkov explained. The response has been “very positive” and EvenBet has “already agreed about a few integrations of this new game with them,” leading him to conclude that “we have tested it and it’s working.”

Importantly, the decision to create EvenBet Spins was not based purely on curiosity. Starostenkov pointed to “a proven case in France, where sports betting operators successfully added this format into the sports betting operations and it’s very, very popular.” In that market, the format is “generating 50 to 60 per cent of the poker revenue and substantially increases the GGR with this poker game.” That experience gave EvenBet confidence that a simplified, casino‑style poker product can perform strongly within sportsbook ecosystems.

Looking ahead, Starostenkov stressed that EvenBet Spins is “not the final game.” The company already has “some roadmap how we can make this game without adding complexity, but… even more engaged,” including plans to “introduce additional jackpots, additional multipliers for the players inside this game.” The goal is “to stay ahead of the competition” while preserving the simplicity that makes the format accessible.

At SiGMA Central Europe 2025, Starostenkov said the live feedback from operators had reinforced his belief that the market has been waiting for this kind of product. Reaction at the stand has been “very positive,” especially from casino and sportsbook operators “which are not familiar with poker.” Their response, he said, is essentially: “Oh, we have been waiting for this for quite long time now, definitely want to add this into our operations.” In a sector where “it’s so hard to be different” with a centuries‑old game like poker and “hundreds of thousands of games” already on the market, EvenBet is betting that a streamlined, highly engaging Spins format can open the vertical to a much wider range of operators.