A landmark 2026 whitepaper, The economics of AI-powered iGaming customer support has today been released. It explores why player support costs more in gambling than in most other sectors, how artificial intelligence changes those economics, and what operators and BPO providers can realistically expect from AI adoption.
The report highlights a stark disparity between human-led support and AI-integrated operations.
As C-level executives face rising labour costs in traditional hubs like Romania and Bulgaria, tax hikes and growing uncertainty due to current political events, it’s essential to decouple player growth from rising support costs.
Core Finding
At Tugi Tark’s verified pricing of EUR 0.15 per AI-handled ticket, the cost advantage over even the most cost-competitive human staffing markets in Eastern Europe is clear and compounding. The per-ticket cost of human support in Romania or Bulgaria, when accounting for fully loaded employer costs, ranges from EUR 1.73 to EUR 1.88. At 70% AI containment, blended support cost falls to approximately EUR 0.67 per ticket, a reduction of roughly 64%.
An approach that blends advanced human agents and AI agents can reduce per-ticket costs from €1.88 to just €0.15.
The analysis draws on Eurostat 2024 labour cost data for European markets, published industry research on AI chatbot performance benchmarks, iGaming player behaviour data from independent research, and verified operational data from Tugi Tark deployments.
Key financial findings
- Cost reduction: Operators can achieve a 55% to 75% reduction in total support expenditure.
- Blended efficiency: At a realistic 70% AI containment rate, the average cost across all support interactions (blended AI and human) drops to approximately €0.67, compared to a human-only baseline of €1.88.
- Scalability: Unlike human teams, which require linear hiring to match player growth, AI handles volume spikes—such as those during major sporting events—with zero additional overhead or training lag.
Harpo Lilja, founder and CEO of TUgi Tark, comments: “In 2026, the ‘wait-and-see’ approach to AI is costing operators millions in unnecessary overhead. We aren’t just talking about chatbots; we’re talking about a fundamental shift in the unit economics of player retention.”
For iGaming CFOs and COOs, support is a direct revenue protector. With payment issues accounting for 52% of all ticket volume, slow response times are the primary driver of player churn.
- Tugi Tark’s model shows that a modest 0.5 percentage point churn reduction — achieved through instant, 24/7 resolution — can retain an additional 500 players per month for a mid-sized operator.
- Based on a conservative average Player Lifetime Value (LTV) of €400, this retention improvement translates to €200,000 in annual revenue that would otherwise be lost to competitors.
- While human agents average ~60 seconds for first response, AI agents do it in just ~7 seconds, delivering near-instant support while maintaining 24/7 consistency across multiple languages.
Unlike generic LLMs, specialist AI agents are engineered for the high-stakes regulatory environment of 2026. The whitepaper outlines how the platform handles:
- Responsible Gambling (RG): AI identifies distress signals and instantly escalates to human specialists, ensuring compliance and player safety.
- KYC & AML: AI guides players through documentation workflows, reducing friction in the “time-to-play” pipeline.
- Data sovereignty: Full compliance with GDPR and local licensing conditions, ensuring player data is never compromised.
