Gem Bonanza

What is Gem Bonanza?

For the first half of 2026, lottery and land based gaming generated €317.9 million in gross gaming revenue, remainin flat compared with H1 2025. 

Lottery games contributed €254.5 million, up from €246.1 million, bolstered by a 9.1% increase in digital lottery revenue propelled by the Veikkaus app and product launches such as Milli (launched June 2025). 

Revenue from slot machines and physical table games declined to €63.4 million from €71.3 million, primarily due to a reduced retail network and fewer slot machines.

How to play Gem Bonanza

But the groundwork for my own thing had already been laid, as did the actual global backdrop for speeding up what I was already predicting was going to happen anyway. So I focused up and got it started. I still wrote for CalvinAyre.com though, which actually hung on, to my pleasant surprise.

Meanwhile, EGI continued to grow and a year later, meaning now, it’s taking off. I’m thinking at this point I really have to put all my focus on EGI and probably let go of my column, but I liked it too much because Bill allows freedom of expression, not to be taken for granted, especially not in this censorific world.

So just around the time my subscription base is starting to take off and I’m wondering whether I should focus on my own stuff entirely and drop everything else, knowing the End is Near anyway, I get a call from Bill, saying that CalvinAyre.com (will no longer publish gambling news).

How to play Gem Bonanza

Looking back on my 11+ years with CalvinAyre.com, I’ve made life-long friendships, attended countless industry events, interviewed hundreds of leaders, made thousands of contacts, built deep relationships with organizers, even had the honor of delivering a DAF award or two back in the day (who remembers???!!) but best of all, had the pleasure of working with some of the most incredible colleagues along the way, many of which who I classify now as dear friends.

When I joined CalvinAyre.com in August of 2009, there was an enormous gap in the industry for an honest, transparent news site with regular, fresh video content. Over time, we grew from a tiny team of a handful of people to dozens, providing the industry with the juiciest breaking news and cutting-edge video coverage. 

Today we pass on the torch to our event organizing and media production friends who have more recently developed outstanding news coverage and video teams dedicated to the gaming space, hopefully who I’ll be seeing at CoinGeek Conferences in the future.