New York, April 06, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Optimove, the creator of Positionless Marketing and the #1 Player Engagement Solution for iGaming and sports betting operators, today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Smartico, the company that brought gamification-led CRM marketing to the iGaming industry. The transaction is expected to close in the coming weeks.
As part of the agreement, both Optimove and Smartico will continue to operate as fully independent businesses, each maintaining its own brand, team, product strategy, roadmap, and market approach. The Smartico founders will continue to lead the company, retaining full decision-making authority over strategy, product roadmap, and day-to-day operations. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.
The acquisition comes at a time of sustained global growth in online gaming. According to the Online Gambling Market: Global Trends, Regulation & Forecast 2025–2033 report, the global online gambling market reached US$95.3 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach US$185.17 billion by 2033. At the same time, complexity is increasing across every major region — from maturing European markets navigating regulatory evolution, to a fragmented US landscape, to fast-growing regions across Latin America, Africa and Asia. For operators navigating this complexity, having genuine choice in CRM marketing platforms has never mattered more.
Optimove blazed the trail in CRM marketing for iGaming, creating the category and building the market. Over time, Optimove watched peers enter the space. One stood out. Smartico was the company that brought gamification combined with CRM marketing to the iGaming industry — at the time a genuinely new product category — and built a strong, disciplined business around it. The acquisition brings together two of the leading platforms in the space, reinforcing Optimove’s category leadership at a moment when the iGaming CRM market is transitioning from a growth phase to a more mature one.
The two companies come from different roots. Optimove was built on data analytics, now using deep intelligence to power AI decisioning agents that help operators understand, segment, and engage their players with personalized messages. Smartico revolutionized CRM marketing by embedding gamification directly into the player journey, driving deeper, more rewarding engagement. Today, they are amplifying that approach by infusing custom-built generative AI into every corner of their product, unlocking next-level innovation across their suite. Together, they represent the two defining starting points in iGaming CRM. As independent companies, each will continue to innovate and drive the industry forward.
“What impressed us about Smartico is the combination of product strength, service excellence, and the way the company has been built,” said Pini Yakuel, Founder and CEO of Optimove. “Like Optimove, they created a strong business that was bootstrapped. What began as a hobby by four enthusiasts driven by the challenge of player retention quickly evolved into something very real. They made smart investments, built an excellent team, and delivered genuine value to clients. Smartico was the competitor that stood out, and that’s because they did something original: they were first to bring gamification and CRM marketing together as a compelling marketing advantage that iGaming operators adopted. The category now has two leading platforms. We built one and we’ve backed the other.”
Arman Gal, CEO & Co-Founder of Smartico, said: “We’re proud to join forces with Optimove at such an important moment for the iGaming CRM industry. From the beginning, we built Smartico with a clear product vision, strong execution, and a deep commitment to creating real value for customers. We appreciate the trust that Pini and the Optimove team have placed in what we’ve built. “What makes this step especially meaningful for us is that Smartico remains fully independent, with the same leadership, the same team, and full control over our product strategy and roadmap. That allows us to keep moving forward as ourselves, while benefiting from greater strength and opportunity. “This partnership gives us more firepower to scale faster, serve the market even better, and continue innovating in the player engagement space we helped shape.”
Independent Operation and Continued Competition
Smartico will continue to operate as an independent business unit. Its founders will continue to lead the company’s strategy, product roadmap, and day-to-day operations. Nothing changes for Smartico’s clients: the same team, the same product, the same pricing, and the same service model. It now has the added strength of a well-resourced backer. Both companies will continue to invest in their respective platforms and compete in the market. For example, Optimove will continue to develop and strengthen Optimove Gamify, its own loyalty and gamification platform as it drives CRM marketing into the Positionless era. Smartico will continue to evolve its own product roadmap independently. This is intentional: both companies believe that competition drives innovation and produces better outcomes for iGaming operators.
Leadership in iGaming CRM and AI
As the pioneer of CRM marketing for iGaming, Optimove defined the category and continues to lead it. The company has been at the forefront of AI innovation in marketing since 2012, embedding AI directly into its platform and paving the way for the AI decisioning agents that now shape the industry.
Today, its Positionless Marketing platform enables marketers to break free from the limitations of fixed roles by managing AI agents across marketing workflows with the goal of orchestrating highly personalized campaigns in real time and at scale. Positionless Marketing has been proven to improve campaign efficiency by 88%.
This deal marks a seminal moment for the iGaming industry, proof that the category Optimove created is now one of the most dynamic and consequential marketing disciplines in the world.
About Smartico
Smartico pioneered gamification in the iGaming industry and became one of the companies that helped shape the modern player engagement category by combining gamification and CRM in a single platform. Its solutions help operators increase retention, loyalty, engagement, and player value through a powerful mix of real-time gamification and CRM capabilities. Founded as a bootstrapped business, Smartico has built a strong reputation for product excellence, disciplined execution, and service quality, with an impressive customer base across global iGaming markets. The company’s portfolio includes Smartico and TheAffiliatePlatform.com. For more information, go to smartico.ai.
About Optimove
Optimove is the creator of Positionless Marketing and the #1 Player Engagement Solution for iGaming and sports betting operators. Positionless Marketing frees marketing teams from the limitations of fixed roles, giving every marketer the power to execute any marketing task instantly and independently. Positionless Marketing has been proven to improve campaign efficiency by 88%, allowing marketing teams to create more personalized engagement with existing customers.
For two years running, Optimove has been positioned as a Visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs, recognized for its AI-driven decisioning, prescriptive insights, and proven ability to orchestrate thousands of personalized campaigns in real time across channels.
By embedding AI directly into its platform as early as 2012, Optimove paved the way for today’s Positionless Marketing standard. Its Positionless Marketing Platform includes Optimove Engage and Orchestrate for cross-channel campaign decisioning and orchestration; Optimove Personalize, a digital personalization engine; and Optimove Gamify, a loyalty and gamification platform.
Optimove provides industry-specific and use-case solutions for leading consumer brands globally.
Olivia Arruda Optimove 8585881053 olivia_a@optimove.com Rob Wyse Optimove 2129201470 rob_w@optimove.com
