From late May to mid-July, we didn’t really unpack our suitcases.
Our team hit five conferences in seven weeks. MAC in Yerevan. i-Con in Cyprus. SiGMA Asia in Manila. iGB Live in London. Affiliate World Europe in Budapest.
Our CEO Eran, our COO Ziv, our CMO Avi, our Sales Director Gabriel, and our Partnerships Manager Cristian split the load between them. Nobody did all five solo. That would be insane.
Here’s what we saw, city by city.
Stop 1: MAC Affiliate Conference, Yerevan (May 25-27)
Yerevan kicked off the tour with a bang. MAC has been running since 2017, and it’s grown into the biggest iGaming and affiliate event in the CIS region.
The numbers: over 5,000 attendees from 62+ countries. 170+ exhibitor stands packed into Meridian Expo. 200 speakers across the two conference days.
The vibe here is different from Western Europe. MAC is where East meets West. CIS-based teams with serious traffic volumes rub shoulders with international brands trying to scale into new GEOs.
The city practically turned itself into a conference venue for the week. Pre-parties, padel tournaments, private dinners at vineyards outside town, and a legendary afterparty that people were still talking about on the flight home.
For us, MAC was about one thing: understanding CIS traffic flows and how they’re shifting. That’s not something you get from a Zoom call.
Stop 2: i-Con, Cyprus (May 28-29)
We went straight from Yerevan to Limassol. No rest days on this tour.
i-Con is smaller than MAC, around 3,000 attendees, but it punches above its weight. It’s multi-vertical: dating, adult, iGaming, crypto, sweepstakes, all under one roof at City of Dreams Mediterranean.
What stood out was the entrepreneur angle. i-Con runs a “Winning Pitch Deck” competition alongside the main event, giving smaller companies a real stage next to the established players.
The setting helped too. Beachside resort, Mediterranean sun, and a schedule built for actual conversations instead of rushed handshakes between sessions.
Stop 3: SiGMA Asia, Manila (May 31 – June 3)
Manila was the biggest stop by far. SiGMA Asia is the APAC flagship, and this year it lived up to that.
The scale: 20,000+ delegates projected, 500+ exhibitors, a two-level expo floor at the SMX Convention Centre. Endorsed by PAGCOR, the Philippine gaming regulator.
The conversations here centered on regulation. The Philippine market is adjusting post-POGO, and everyone wanted to know what that means for operators and affiliates working the region. SEO in the AI era and stablecoin/Web3 integration were the other two hot topics on stage.
SiGMA also runs 15 iGathering networking dinners alongside the main event. Those small-room dinners are where a lot of the real deals actually start, not on the expo floor.
Asia is a market we’re actively watching, and Manila made the case for why.
Stop 4: iGB Live, London (July 1-2)
After a short breather, it was back to Europe for iGB Live at ExCeL London.
This event broke its own record last year, over 20,000 attendees from 149 countries. This year’s projection sat around 15,000+, still a serious crowd, still 300+ exhibitors on the floor.
iGB Live is built around three pillars: Casino, Sports Betting, and Affiliate. That structure makes it easy to actually find your people instead of wandering a generic expo hall.
Two features worth flagging. The Sustainable Gambling Zone, focused on player protection and fake-game detection, keeps growing every year. And the iGB Affiliate Awards, hosted at The Shard, has become a genuine industry fixture, not just an afterthought bolted onto the conference.
London in July felt like the industry’s mid-year checkpoint. Audit what worked in H1, get ready for the back half of the year.
What Being on the Road Taught Us
Five conferences, five very different rooms. A few things held true across all of them.
Regional traffic is fragmenting fast. CIS, APAC, and Western Europe are moving on different timelines with different rules. What works for one GEO doesn’t automatically translate to the next.
Regulation keeps eating the agenda. Whether it’s Manila talking POGO fallout or London’s Sustainable Gambling Zone, compliance isn’t a side conversation anymore. It’s the main one.
Small rooms beat big floors. The iGatherings in Manila, the vineyard dinner in Yerevan, the niche tracks in Budapest, that’s where the actual deals get made. The main stage sets the agenda; the side rooms close it.
AI showed up everywhere. Search disruption, SEO shifts, automated affiliate recruitment. Every single event had at least one session on it.
Next Up
We’re not slowing down. If you run traffic in any of these regions and weren’t in the room, you missed conversations that’ll shape the next two quarters.
For a network like Reacheffect, this kind of ground-level intelligence is exactly what shapes where we point traffic next. Five cities, one summer, and a much clearer picture of where the industry is headed.
See you at the next stop.
