Gold Lab

What is Gold Lab?

Kambi’s path to the 2026 World Cup began with its initial investment in AI trading technology in 2021. The platform was deployed at scale during the Qatar 2022 tournament and fully embedded within its trading operations by 2024.

By 2026, the technology had already been tested across several seasons of top-level competitions including the Premier League and Champions League. AI now trades more than 70% of bets across Kambi’s network, including all football and tennis.

The 2026 World Cup was therefore the culmination of five years of development that had embedded AI throughout Kambi’s trading operations.

What is Gold Lab?

Even the most flexible technology cannot do all the work itself. Wilson is blunt about what happens when an operator treats an integration as the end of the job.

“If I just give you one of our games or our jackpot engine and you just plug it in and leave it there to collect dust, you will come back and tell me in three months’ time it’s not working,” he says. “And I will say to you, ‘How have you invested in the product?’”

Splash Tech instead begins by asking what success means for that operator: more sign-ups, improved conversion, bet-slip monetisation, higher lifetime value, retention among a specific cohort or reactivation of churned players.

How to play Gold Lab

The KGCC, which operates under the prime minister’s office and oversees gambling supervision and the monitoring of illegal gambling activity, will collaborate with the Gyeonggi education office. There will be policy coordination, student protection and the exchange of educational resources and prevention experts. 

The partnership also plans to analyse operational data, develop pilot programmes and construct a model for national deployment.

A systemic policy cooperation mechanism is expected, targeting youth gambling prevention and student safeguarding. Rather than implementing short-term campaigns, the focus will be on embedding gambling prevention into everyday school routines.