Royal Fishing

What is Royal Fishing?

In 2021, I joined an investment fund focused on startups harnessing AI and machine learning. In the process, I had a chance encounter with an iGaming investor. This sparked a conversation that would change the course of my career. He pointed out that iGaming was dramatically underutilising its data potential. There was an opportunity here, and once we began exploring it, the thread just kept unravelling.

I started out as an adviser with the Playa, but was appointed the company’s CEO in 2024, a position I did not expect to find myself in, but an opportunity I have embraced with open arms. As a company, we provide AI personalisation solutions to businesses, something that was totally new to the market.

Coming from the outside, I needed to gather a team to help steer the ship. In the two years since I took on the role, I have been blessed to work with some of the sharpest minds in the industry and I couldn’t be prouder of what we have achieved so far.

What is Royal Fishing?

Potentially boding well for the Macquarie forecast are at least two factors. First, there are signs of turnover increases across a variety of yes/no exchanges. Second, volume surged to start September with those spikes arriving even before the NFL season kicked off.

As Macquarie analyst Chad Beynon points out, prediction markets generated $4.3 billion in taker volume during the first week of September without any help from the NFL, building on momentum from the 2026 World Cup. However, the NFL’s impact was immediate, with taker volume hitting a daily record during Week 1 of the campaign.

With all that in mind, it’s not surprising that Macquarie expects sports event contracts will drive approximately 80% of taker volume this year, but Beynon sees other categories growing over the long term.

How to play Royal Fishing

“It’s profitable, it’s growing and it was for sale from a distressed vendor,” he says. “That combination rarely appears in regulated Europe, where scaling a B2C brand means paying up for customers against Flutter and Entain on thin margins.

“Africa isn’t saturated, but I wouldn’t call it easy either. Betway and the local incumbents are well dug in. The difference is that you’re competing for a market that’s still forming, at a fraction of the acquisition cost, and the operating margin is there if you get the payments and the product right. The risk is regulatory and currency rather than competitive.”

GiG’s immediate priority following the completion of the deal will be disciplined integration, says Richards. This includes bringing 888Africa’s financial reporting, compliance and operational processes in line with GiG’s standards.