The iGaming industry loves numbers — but it rarely agrees on what they mean.
In a new Gamblers Connect exclusive, Blask Co-founder & CEO Max Tesla lays out the logic behind Blask’s “Truth in Data” philosophy: why fragmented intelligence keeps operators flying half-blind, why “outside-in” measurement is becoming more valuable than panel-based reports, and why awards themselves are overdue for an audit.
From “market blindness” to benchmarks you can actually reference
Max Tesla describes the core frustration that led to Blask: in an industry driven by performance, teams were still being asked to make high-stakes decisions using assumptions, partial datasets, and tools that “capture activity without explaining.”
Blask’s answer is to turn public signals into structured benchmarks — including the Blask Index as a leading indicator of brand demand and positioning — so teams can validate decisions, spot momentum early, and plan with more confidence.
A key theme in the interview is democratization: big budgets and big teams don’t guarantee good decisions, and scale can amplify mistakes. The advantage shifts when more teams can reference the same market benchmarks — toward those who act earlier and more precisely.
What is Blask Index
Blask Index is the “stock-market index” for iGaming demand: it measures total interest in a country and how much of it each brand holds.
It rests on the Share of Search relationship between branded-search share and market share (typically ~80–90% correspondence, with a leading indicator effect). Because search often precedes market share moves, the index is an early read of brand and category growth or decline.
To make this precise for iGaming, Blask expands brand semantics (misspellings, synonyms, locales), filters negative/irrelevant queries, normalizes series and reduces sampling noise. You get a clean, country- and period-comparable signal updated at hourly cadence.
It’s an objective barometer of market size and the balance of power “right now” (by country and by brand), helping you see cycles sooner, read campaign and regulatory effects, and set investment priorities.
Read also: Blask Index: your market pulse, hour by hour
Why “outside-in” beats echo chambers
Gamblers Connect frames Blask as a response to the weakening reliability of cookie- and panel-dependent analytics — and Tesla reinforces the point: internal data shows how you perform inside your own ecosystem, while outside-in signals show where attention is moving before it shows up as traffic, signups, or revenue.
Blask doesn’t claim to replace internal BI; it aims to complete it by mapping competitive positioning and demand shifts in context.
The Blask Awards: recognition that doesn’t depend on who submitted the best story
One of the strongest pivots in the piece is the extension from analytics into awards.
Traditional awards aren’t necessarily “wrong,” but their outcomes are inconsistent and difficult to compare year to year because they depend on submissions, juries, and subjective scoring.
Blask Awards removes that layer:
- No applications — only criteria derived from benchmarks
- No “best story” wins — recognition is tied to sustained demand, momentum, and measurable performance signals
This is where the interview becomes less about trophies and more about operational utility: categories are designed for decision-making (growth, momentum, consistency, competitive positioning), not for PR-friendly narratives.
What stops the system from being gamed?
If data is the judge, integrity becomes the whole courtroom.
In the methodology section, Tesla explains how Blask uses BAP, APS, and CEB — with different categories emphasizing different benchmarks depending on what outcome is being recognized.
On manipulation risk, the process described is practical rather than mythical: measure brands, not domains (consolidating mirrors/clones), filter signals by intent, apply anomaly detection, and run flagged cases through a defined review protocol (seasonality/context, competitor cluster behavior, and whether to down-weight/exclude anomaly windows).
The point isn’t perfection. It’s repeatability — an award logic that can be audited, explained, and defended.
What is BAP (Brand’s Accumulated Power)
BAP is a percentage measure of brand strength over time — a brand’s “accumulated power” as a share of category power in a given market.
Built on cleaned external behavioral signals (Blask Index, social engagement, mentions/reviews, affiliate activity), BAP is aggregated and normalized, so it’s stable against swings in absolute market size and fits cross-country, cross-period comparisons.
BAP is not sales and not SEO traffic — it’s a relative indicator of market power, revealing whose share of attention is rising or waning, and where the potential lies for acquisition (APS) and revenue (CEB).
Read also: BAP is all you need: transitioning from market share to Brand’s Accumulated Power
What is APS (Acquisition power Score)
APS is an external, market-based benchmark for new-customer acquisition (for a brand or a country’s brand total): how many new users an operator should be bringing in at current brand strength and competitive intensity. It is not your FTD/registration tally and not a re-hash of yesterday’s conversions; it’s an objective reference built on external behavioral signals — search interest and brand visibility, social engagement, behavioral indicators and competitive anchors.
APS is presented as a range (min–avg–max), not a single point: interval forecasts are the responsible standard because they reflect uncertainty and quantify risk/potential around the anchor (below the minimum — shortfall: look for leaks in reach, creative, UX/onboarding, channels; near or above the top — strategic advantage to protect).
APS is a shared language for goals and retrospectives: it lets you compare results with a statistically attainable acquisition level in current competition and benchmark across markets without confusing one-off surges with a brand’s steady ability to convert attention into customers.
Bottom line: APS = the market baseline for potential acquisition for a brand with your strength in today’s conditions, computed from objective external data and delivered as an interval.
CEB (Competitive Earning Baseline)
CEB is an external, market-based revenue benchmark (for a brand or a country’s brand total) in USD: how much an operator should be earning in a given country, given brand strength and competitive context. It is not your accounting ledger and not a guess at GGR; it’s an objective reference built on behavioral market signals (search interest, brand visibility), competitive anchors, and a model that captures brand equity and a brand’s ability to attract new customers.
Brand equity’s link to financial outcomes is well established; external signals improve demand forecasts — that’s why we use them as the base for potential revenue.
In practice, CEB is presented as a range (min — “base”, avg — “most likely”, max — “ceiling”), not a single number. Leaders see both the anchor and the risk/opportunity around it. Interval forecasts are the standard in serious planning: they better reflect uncertainty and aid decisions (below the base — shortfall: check pricing, funnels, product; above the ceiling — you’re beating the market: document what worked).
CEB is a shared language for targets and retrospectives. It lets you compare actuals with what’s statistically attainable for a brand with your attention share in today’s competition — and benchmark against the best in market without confusing marketing performance with one-off spikes.
Bottom line: CEB = the market baseline for the brand’s revenue, computed from objective external data and delivered as an interval.
Read more: Leading the shift: ushering in APS & CEB for a new era of brand performance
What’s next: deeper interpretation, not just more data
Looking to 2026, the roadmap described in the piece leans into “why,” not just “what”: more explanatory layers (including Market Explanation), improved product-level scoring, and expanded geographic coverage — making awards more granular and more useful as a benchmark.
Tesla also pushes back on the idea of becoming a gatekeeper. The ambition is standardization in the healthy sense: a more consistent language for performance, greater comparability, and better decision-making across markets.
