AC Milan Legend and world football icon Andrea Pirlo officially addressed the second annual Golden Boomerang Awards 2025 tournament participants. The organizer, Boomerang Partners, posted a video message on social media.

Pirlo was excited about the event: “The Golden Boomerang Awards 2025 is where legends and winners come together. And this year, I’ll be there, waiting to meet the top 30 at San Siro on May 20th. It’s going to be a special night. Full of energy, football, and style — in the heart of Milan.”

Andrea Pirlo is the 2006 World Champion with the Italian national team. He has twice won the Champions League with AC Milan and is a multiple winner of Serie A, the Italian Cup, the Italian Super Cup, and other notable tournaments. He is also inducted into the AC Milan Hall of Fame and the Italian Football Hall of Fame. After finishing his career as a footballer, Andrea started his coaching journey. Pirlo’s presence at the Golden Boomerang Awards ceremony links football’s legacy with the future of digital entertainment.

With the Golden Boomerang Awards 2025 concluding on May 11, the top 30 affiliate teams are now set to gather in Milan for a night of recognition, creativity, and connection. Boomerang provides this opportunity as the Official Regional Betting Partner of AC Milan. Awards will be presented in 11 categories, including the main one—the Grand Prix. Guests can expect an unforgettable evening with Andrea Pirlo. They can look forward to high-profile networking opportunities, inspiring moments, and speeches celebrating the fusion of culture, innovation, and creativity.

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About Boomerang

Boomerang Partners is a rapidly growing global brand offering a wide range of services. Boomerang is the Official Regional Betting Partner of AC Milan and collaborates with women’s football star and influencer Alisha Lehmann. In 2024, it launched the inaugural Golden Boomerang Awards 2024, the first annual global affiliate tournament. Boomerang Partners’ betting segment surged 5x, and gambling — 2x in 2024. Its affiliate program demonstrated a 120% increase in partners, and the number of sports betting offers surged more than 6 times. Six new products were launched by Boomerang in 2024, which contributed to an almost 1.5-fold increase in product users.

Boomerang’s portfolio contains 15+ gambling brands, including sportsbooks. They cover over 35 GEOs and offer a wide range of betting options with favorable odds. These products provide personalized bonuses and 24/7 multilingual support.

The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) is pleased to announce a partnership with Letzz, an AI-powered compliance workspace designed for online gambling, to modernise regulatory monitoring and enhance strategic compliance across Europe’s fragmented online gambling landscape.

Through this partnership, EGBA will implement Letzz‘s AI-powered tool to enhance its own regulatory monitoring capabilities. Launching this week, the Letzz platform offers operators real-time, expert-validated insights and automated regulatory news scanning, creating a single, reliable source of information for compliance management.

“We are committed to promoting the highest standards of compliance across Europe’s online gambling sector,” said Maarten Haijer, Secretary General at EGBA. “With 27 countries in the EU, each with their own gambling laws and a myriad of requirements, accessible tools like Letzz can help both associations like EGBA and operators better understand the complex landscape of regulatory obligations.”

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“We founded Letzz with the belief that compliance should be a competitive advantage, not just a necessity,” said Daniel Gambin, Co-Founder and CEO at Letzz. “Our partnership with EGBA allows us to bring this vision to a wider audience of operators who share our commitment to excellence in regulatory compliance. By transforming compliance from a challenge into a strategic business asset, we’re helping operators stay abreast of the latest regulatory changes.”

The collaboration reflects EGBA’s commitment to promoting a well-regulated online gambling market with the highest compliance standards.

Source: egba.eu

Gamecity Hamburg is setting sail with the premiere edition of Portside Game Assembly – a dedicated B2B conference for international indie game leaders – taking place aboard a ship cruising Hamburg’s famous harbour on June 27. With a carefully curated program of keynotes, impulse talks, and roundtables, the conference offers a rare opportunity for studio directors and decision makers to connect in a focused and collaborative setting. Designed to spark fresh perspectives and actionable insights, the event brings together voices from acclaimed indie studios worldwide like Benjamin Laulan (COO & Co-Founder Evil Empire), Philomena Schwab (Founder Stray Fawn Studio), Søren Lundgaard (CEO Ghost Ship Games), Mauricio García (Studio Director The Game Kitchen), Kevin Zuhn (Creative Director & Co-Founder Young Horses Inc.), and more speakers. Tickets for the full conference experience, including a Networking Brunch and the Games Industry Party, are available at portsideassembly.com.

As the premiere of the Portside Game Assembly on June 27 is approaching, the laser-focused program for indie game leaders takes shape.

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Keynotes, impulse talks and roundtables: This is the program

By offering a confidential setting for studio directors, the Portside provides value through relevant conversations and strategic networking, which is also reflected in the diverse yet focused conference program. These are some of the program highlights:

• Keynote: Benjamin Laulan (COO & Co-Founder Evil Empire): The “Triple-i Initiative Deep Dive” keynote on how to create your own announcement space and talk directly to your audience when you can’t really relate to other existing showcases.

Impulse Blocks:Impulse Blocks consist of two to three impulse talks, all of which relate to an overarching topic, followed by an open discussion about the perspectives shown and an opportunity for participants to share their own experiences. The discussions will be moderated by Mariève Beauchemin (Programs Director & Co-Founder Indie Asylum) and Andreas Suika (Creative Director & Game Designer).

• Mining for Your Next Gem – How to Decide which Games to Develop

A defining and crucial decision for every indie game studio is: what of the (probably many) game ideas should be pursued? Where should studios allocate their resources – and what game will help a studio prevail? Three speakers will share their approaches to these questions in 10-minute impulse talks:

• • Philomena Schwab (Founder Stray Fawn Studio): Game Idea Validation
  • Jonas Tyroller (Founder Grizzly Games): You Don’t Need a Hook
  • René Habermann (Director bippinbits): Don’t Ship the Wrong Game

• Games Are Made by People – How to Foster a Good Company Culture

Founding and maintaining an independent game studio and managing a small to mid-size team comes with a lot of responsibility: from growing or having to downsize a team to maintaining a company culture where talent is nurtured, developed, and kept long-term.

• • Mauricio García (Studio Director The Game Kitchen): Keeping the Indie Mindset while Going Big
  • Kevin Zuhn (Creative Director & Co-Founder Young Horses Inc.): Hold Your Horses: Why Slow is How We Grow

• From Dev to Dev – Why to Invest in Other Studios

More and more indie studios take the leap to market not only their own games but also put their resources and experiences on games from other developers. Two speakers will share their motivations and learnings from investing in games and studios that are not their own:

• • Søren Lundgaard (CEO Ghost Ship Publishing): Developer by Day, Publisher by Night
  • Christian Nyhus Andreasen (COO Fair Games): How to Lose 50% and Still Prosper – Angel Investment Lifestyle

Roundtables:

Roundtables have a more interactive concept than impulse blocks and encourage participants to discuss all aspects of the overarching question from the very beginning

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• Roundtable 1: Mobile Ports – When, Why & How? Moderated by Ali Farha (Senior Producer Star Stable Entertainment)
• Roundtable 2: Stronger Together – Business Cooperations Between Indies. Moderated by Manny Hachey (Creative Director Positive Impact Games)
• Roundtable 3: (Self-)Publishing – The Good, the Bad, the Ugly. Moderated by Sophie Atkin (Director & Founder Secret Sauce)
• Roundtable 4: Longtail FTW – How to Make the Most out of Your Game. Moderated by Leonie Wolf (Associate Art Director Maschinen-Mensch)

The Portside Game Assembly website offers a detailed view on speakers, program topics and participating studios: https://portsideassembly.com/program/

The premiere of the Portside Game Assembly is supported by these great sponsors and partners: Photon and Twin Harbour Interactive!

Selection of already confirmed participants:

More than 60 studios from over 15 countries have already registered for the Portside Game Assembly conference on board the MS Princess. Besides already announced participants like Evil Empire, Stray Fawn Studio, The Game Kitchen, Toukana Interactive, Ghostship Publishing, and others, further acclaimed studios join the conference:

• Digital Sun (Moonlighter, Cataclismo) / Spain
• Keen Games (Enshrouded) / Germany
• Young Horses Inc. (Bugsnax, Octodad) / USA
• Gamious (Lake, Turmoil) / Netherlands
• Color Gray Games (The Case of the Golden Idol) / Latvia
• Massive Damage (Star Renegades) / Canada
• Beam NG (BeamNG.drive) / Germany

Further participating studios can be found on the Portside Game Assembly.