Become AI-native for a media, events and iGaming powerhouse
Nadine is assessing three things: do you understand the business, can you think strategically, and can you explain complex systems simply. This page turns your prep into pictures so the model sticks. The one rule: every answer connects AI to revenue or relationships, never technology for its own sake.
How NEXT.io makes money: the flywheel
Memorise this. It is the deal-breaker question. Content builds a senior audience, the audience draws delegates, and access to that audience is what sponsors pay for. The revenue funds more content, and the wheel turns faster.
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The audience is the product. Everything builds a senior, trusted audience, and sponsorship and tickets monetise access to it.
Sponsorship
The biggest lever. 58 products per event, headline down to lanyards. Plus media: banners, editorial, podcast, Magazine.
Delegate tickets
Paid entry to summits and the NEXTPredict summit. Volume play (Valletta ~6,000).
Media advertising
Year-round monetisation of the daily news audience via ads and sponsored content.
Retreats + research
Invitation-only luxury retreats and paid market reports. High-margin, relationship-driven.
The iGaming value chain (close your domain gap)
You have no industry experience, so learn who the players are. NEXT.io sits above the whole ecosystem as the neutral meeting place: it serves operators, suppliers, affiliates and investors, and monetises their need to reach each other.
Solid arrows = money and players flow · dotted = who NEXT.io serves
Glossary to drop naturally
| Term | Plain meaning |
|---|---|
| Operator | The betting or casino brand players use (B2C). bet365, Entain, Flutter/DraftKings, Betsson, Casumo. |
| Supplier / provider | Platform tech and game studios that power operators (B2B). Evolution, Pragmatic Play, Playtech. The big sponsors. |
| Affiliate | Performance marketer who sends players to operators for revenue-share or CPA. |
| GGR / NGR | Gross / net gaming revenue. The industry's core money metric. |
| CPA vs rev-share | Two ways affiliates get paid: a fixed cost-per-acquisition, or a share of player revenue. |
| KYC / AML | Know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering checks. Compliance backbone. |
| MGA / UKGC | Malta Gaming Authority and UK Gambling Commission. Malta is the European hub (why NEXT is there). |
UK tax
New ~40% tax regime and Gambling Act reform squeezing operators.
US expansion
State-by-state legalisation since 2018. Why NEXT New York exists.
Brazil
Regulated 2025, ~$6.5bn first-year GGR, election-year risk. NEXT scaling in.
Prediction markets
Kalshi, Polymarket, Sporttrade. Why they launched NEXTPredict.
The sponsorship price ladder
A EUR 175k headline sponsorship is a consultative, relationship-driven sale, not a transaction. Knowing the range shows you understand where the money is and why personalization matters at the top end.
| Product (NEXT New York, sample) | Price | Relative scale |
|---|---|---|
| Headline Sponsorship (exclusive) | €175,000 | |
| Livestream | €45,000 | |
| Registration Sponsorship | €38,000 | |
| VIP Speaker Lounge (exclusive) | €30,000 | |
| Lanyards Sponsorship | €25,000 | |
| Exhibition Stand | €19,000 | |
| Delegate Badge (exclusive) | €16,000 | |
| Nico Jansen Run Club | €7,000 |
The human side (where they say most candidates fail)
They want someone who understands why the business works, not just the tech. Have crisp answers to all four of these.
Sponsorship
A big sponsorship is a consultative sale. Sponsors buy access to the right audience (40% operators), brand authority, and warm introductions. Trust and the salesperson's relationship close it.
Delegates
Because of who else is in the room. People come for networking and deal-making, exclusivity, and quality speakers. Valletta is a festival week (golf, padel, parties) precisely because "that is the reason deals get done."
Personalization
These are high-value, bespoke relationships. Generic automation would cheapen the brand and break trust. AI should make the human touch sharper and better-timed.
Content and timing
In a regulation-driven industry, timing is everything. A story or a pitch lands when the market moment is right. Relationships are the moat.
AI here should amplify human relationships and editorial judgement, not replace them. Automate the grunt work so people spend more time on the relationships and timing that close deals.
Where AI meaningfully helps (mapped to revenue)
Never pitch AI for its own sake. For each area, tie it to money or the human side. Note the tools already circling their space, so you can speak to buy vs build.
| Area | AI opportunity | Why it matters to them |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial biggest lever | Sponsor prospecting from the news (a funded company = a target), sponsor-to-product matching, personalized proposals, HubSpot enrichment, renewal prediction. | Grows the €175k-type deals. Supports Richard Crow's commercial layer. |
| Editorial | Research assistants, podcast and session transcription plus summaries, SEO, localization (Portuguese/Spanish), repurposing one event into articles, social and clips. | Scales content output without losing the human voice or independence. |
| Delegates | Conversion prediction, personalized outreach, on-site matchmaking (they already run "AI Match Sessions"). | More ticket sales and a better attendee experience. |
| Research | Turn the proprietary news archive and reports into a queryable knowledge asset and monetizable product. | Their content becomes a durable, compounding company asset. |
| Operations | Speaker sourcing, event logistics, internal knowledge search, CRM hygiene. | Frees a lean team to keep scaling into Brazil and the US. |
Blask
AI-powered market intelligence for iGaming. Featured on their own podcast. Your "research asset" idea competes here.
FastTrack.ai
CRM and automation for operators. Shows AI is already normal in their audience's world.
State of AI in iGaming
NEXT.io's own report (150+ execs). Reference it: "one of the world's most data-rich industries."
What I would build first: the company brain
Lead with the shared knowledge foundation, then prove it with one revenue-linked lighthouse. Same order you followed on Nova Res: build the trusted retrieval foundation first, then layer specialist agents. Agents are only as good as what they can read.
Foundation first (left), then agents (middle), always with a human at the gate (right)
Foundation
One trusted place where editorial archive, HubSpot and market data come together, with retrieval so any tool or agent can read and write safely.
Lighthouse
An AI sponsor-intelligence assistant that spots buying signals in the news and drafts personalized (not automated) outreach a salesperson refines and sends.
Standards + coaching
Light standards from day one (where things live, what is safe to automate vs keep human) so it scales into Brazil and the US.
The 5-day study plan
About 2 to 3 focused hours per day. Produce the written output each day: writing forces clarity and gives you notes for interview morning.
The company 45m
Homepage, culture, summits, retreats. Positioning: "iGaming Event of the Year" 2023.
The money 45m
become-a-sponsor (58 products, price ladder) and the Valletta page (6,000 delegates, AI Match Sessions).
Research arm 30m
Two report series and the editorial-independence stance.
Value chain 60m
Operators, suppliers, affiliates. Glossary: GGR/NGR, CPA, KYC/AML, MGA, UKGC.
Regulation and geography 45m
8 to 10 news articles. UK tax, US expansion, Brazil, Gibraltar.
Prediction markets 30m
Kalshi, Polymarket, Sporttrade. Why NEXTPredict exists.
How they think 60m
1 to 2 NEXT.io Podcast episodes (hosted by co-founder Pierre Lindh). Bonus: Blask and Kyborg.ai episodes.
Human side 45m
Write your four answers. Draft the "amplify not replace" north-star line.
People and culture 30m
LinkedIn: Nadine, Pierre Lindh, Richard Crow. The five values.
Map AI to revenue 60m
1 to 2 concrete opportunities per area, each tied to money or the human side.
First-build narrative 45m
Company brain, then the sponsor-intelligence lighthouse, then standards and coaching.
AI landscape 30m
State of AI in iGaming report; Blask, FastTrack.ai, Kyborg.ai for buy vs build.
Three stories 45m
PRISM, Nova Res RAG, Turners ransomware. 90 seconds each, plain English.
Full mock 60m
Rehearse the Q&A drills below. Ask Copilot to play Nadine.
Questions and logistics 30m
Finalise 4 questions for Nadine. Confirm format and timing.
Q&A drills
Rehearse out loud. The blue block is the line to actually say.
What does NEXT.io do, and how do you make money?
You have no media, events or iGaming experience. Why does that not matter?
What would you build first?
How do you decide what to automate vs keep human?
Do you know n8n?
Your three signature stories (90 seconds each)
- PRISM. Built end to end, solo. Specialist AI agents drive work through planning, building, checking and review, with a human at each gate. Picks the best model per job, survives failures, resilient to a region outage. Proves: hands-on builder + architect.
- Nova Res RAG. A medical platform where retrieval is the core: answers only from trusted sources, with citations, and a verifier checks every claim. You built the self-scaling ingestion pipeline. Proves: the exact "company brain" capability.
- Turners ransomware. Led a war room, isolated the server, ran DR (lost ~1 hour of data), root-caused an open port, closed it, drafted the client response. Handled as a process fix, not blame. Proves: calm leadership under pressure.
Questions to ask Nadine (pick 3 to 4)
- Where do you see AI's first big win: the commercial engine, the editorial engine, or the research asset?
- As you scale into Brazil and the US, what breaks first without better systems?
- How do the commercial and editorial teams share knowledge today, centralised or siloed?
- What does "AI-native" look like to the exec team in 12 months, and what would make this hire a success?
- How much appetite is there to build a proprietary system versus stitching together tools like Blask or FastTrack?
Red lines (repeat before you walk in)
Do not be tech-first
Always connect AI to revenue or relationships. If an answer is only about the technology, reframe it.
Do not replace their people
Amplify salespeople and journalists. Protect editorial independence. AI removes grunt work, not judgement.
Do not fake gambling passion
Sell passion for the systems problem and for helping a challenger out-execute bigger incumbents.
Do not sound rigid or big-bang
Pair "I build in code" with "here is where I would use n8n." Show phased, quick-win thinking.