Entrepreneur · iGaming · Amsterdam
I spent the better part of 15 years figuring out how online betting markets work. Not from the outside, but from inside them. FlyingWager is where that ended up.
I studied Media and Culture at the University of Amsterdam and graduated in 2012. Somewhere during those three years I got pulled into online gambling. Not because of any assignment, just because I found it genuinely interesting. The market was growing fast, there was barely any regulation yet, and I wanted to understand how it all worked. So I started building affiliate sites, testing bonuses, comparing what platforms promised versus what they actually paid out. That's how I learned it.
After graduating I worked as a freelance writer for various blogs and platforms, mostly in tech and iGaming. It felt like a natural continuation of what I was already doing. I kept building things on the side until around 2015, when life got in the way for a while.
I never stopped following the industry though. I kept writing about it here and there, kept track of where things were heading. It was never really off my radar. Just quieter for a few years.
Europe was the starting point. But once you've seen a few markets up close, the familiar ones stop teaching you much. So I went further. Africa, South America, Asia. Places where the whole setup is different: different infrastructure, different regulation, different relationship with gambling entirely.
I ended up in countries where online gambling was outright illegal. That was always interesting to me. Not because I wanted to work around it, but because understanding why a country bans something tells you more about the market than any industry report. I talked to a lot of people in those places. Players, operators, people who just got curious when I asked questions. You pick up things you genuinely cannot read anywhere.
The physical casino visits were useful too. Walking into a casino in Lagos or Buenos Aires or somewhere in Southeast Asia gives you a feel for local gambling culture that data cannot. Two or three times a year I made it to industry conferences in London, Barcelona or Malta. Those trips were where the real conversations happened.
I grew up playing football and video games and honestly both still influence how I look at this industry.
Football taught me to watch the same thing multiple times and see something different each time. That sounds obvious but it matters when you're reviewing a sportsbook. You notice things most people skip over.
Video games are more directly connected than people think. The way casino games are designed, the reward structures, the way you keep someone engaged, it's the same thinking. I already understood that before I ever started reviewing games properly.
2026 — present
Independent review platform for online bookmakers and casinos in Nigeria. Every platform gets tested with a real account and real money. Payment methods, bonus terms, withdrawal speed, mobile experience. Particular attention to how local payment solutions like OPay work in practice.
flyingwager.com ↗2010 — 2015
Several affiliate websites covering the Dutch and Belgian online gambling market. Bonus comparisons, payment method guides, platform reviews. Built during a period when the market was still figuring itself out and you could learn a lot very fast.