The Competitive Edge: Why Gaming and Gambling Brands Should Apply for a dotBrand TLD.

by Stuart Fuller

The gaming and gambling industry is one of the most dynamic and heavily regulated digital ecosystems in the world. With fierce competition, constant innovation, and increasing scrutiny over player safety, trust and brand authenticity have never been more important. As ICANN prepares to open its next round of applications for new top-level domains (TLDs) in 2026, gaming and gambling operators have a rare opportunity to secure one of the most powerful digital assets available today – a dotBrand Top-Level Domain.

Owning and operating a dotBrand TLD is more than a technical upgrade; it is a strategic move that can redefine how gaming and gambling businesses engage with players, regulators, and partners, ensuring they can stay present, protected in prosperous in a market where trust and reliability are critical objectives to stay one step ahead

Growth in revenues associated with online gaming and gambling continue to surge. In 2015, the global worth was estimated to be $37.5bn. By 2023 the value of the market had more than doubled to over $81bn and shows no signs of cooling down. Innovation, access to mobile apps, and market deregulation has fuelled this growth, especially in the US and Brazil, the latter experiencing a 500% increase in just eight years to the end of 2023. With the forecast growth over the coming five years anticipated to reach over $150bn, organisations need to be thinking ahead in how to stand out from the crowd in such a competitive online market.

Building Trust in a Highly Regulated Industry

Trust is the cornerstone of the gaming and gambling industry. Players must know that the site they are playing on is legitimate, licensed, and secure. Unfortunately, phishing attacks and brand impersonation are increasing, with malicious actors replicating well-known gaming brands to deceive players into sharing sensitive information or depositing funds into fraudulent accounts. Any such nefarious activity not only damages revenues but the reputation of the brands themselves.

A dotBrand TLD provides a verifiable layer of trust that generic domains like .com, .net, or .uk simply cannot match. Every website or email ending with your brand TLD suffix becomes an official touchpoint directly under your control. Customers can instantly recognise that any address ending in your dotBrand is legitimate and backed by your regulatory accreditations.

In an industry where compliance is absolutely vital, implementing a dotBrand TLD shows that you are addressing your regulatory requirements seriously. This is vital in an online environment where country-specific requirements and regulations are essential. Using a dotBrand TLD allows you to create specific destination pages or access based on geo-location, without the need to use sub-domains or complex URL structures.

Strengthening Brand Consistency and Control

Gaming and betting companies typically operate across multiple languages, markets, and regulators. Managing consistent branding while remaining compliant is a constant challenge. With a dotBrand TLD, you control your entire namespace and can decide which second-level domains exist, who can use them, and how they are used. This centralised control enables seamless alignment across product categories and campaigns.

Unlike generic domains, where third-party registrars manage and sell names to the public, a dotBrand TLD is restricted exclusively to your organisation, reducing risks of cybersquatting and ensuring that every website reinforces the corporate identity. As you control all aspects of how the TLD is used, you would also benefit from being able to see, and action NX, or non-existent, domain data which is where a user is searching for a specific domain name that does not exist. Understanding these requests would allow you to quickly register and delegate matching domain names to capture this lost traffic.

It is also possible to provide affiliates with their own dotBrand TLDs as well, which can eliminate the risk of rogue affiliates using misleading or lookalike domains to promote unauthorized or non-compliant offers, which is a major compliance headache in regulated gambling markets. As the registry owner, the company can revoke, suspend, or update any subdomain instantly in response to regulatory or reputational breaches, ensuring swift compliance enforcement

Enhancing Player Experience and Engagement

Gaming and gambling brands thrive on innovation and loyalty. A dotBrand TLD can transform the player journey by enabling more personal, memorable, and gamified experiences across platforms. Online players are increasingly wary of phishing attacks and attempted fraud in online gaming and gambling. A dotBrand guarantees that every website with the brand’s unique extension is genuine, vetted, and operated by the brand itself, eliminating confusion and reinforcing player confidence.

DotBrand domains allow for clear, intuitive, and memorable web addresses tailored to user needs. This user-centric design simplifies navigation, minimises friction, and sets the stage for easy customer journeys, from account creation to gameplay to support. Complex or lengthy legacy URLs can be replaced in favour of direct, campaign-ready, or service-category URLs, improving mobile usability and conversion rates.

A dotBrand TLD acts as a powerful global signal, helping organisations build brand equity across global markets and languages. Consistently branded domains make it easier for communities, influencers, and affiliates to promote official content, while automation and analytics become more streamlined for marketing teams, thanks to centralised domain management and campaign tracking.

Boosting Security and Regulatory Alignment

Cybersecurity is a critical concern for gaming companies. Fraudulent schemes can not only lead to financial loss but also damage reputation and regulatory standing. With a dotBrand TLD, you gain control at the root of your digital identity, enabling advanced security configurations such as:

• Mandatory HTTPS for all subdomains and ability to create a HSTS Preload list.
• DNSSEC implementation to prevent domain spoofing.
• Centralised policy enforcement across every domain instance.
• Email verification using strict DMARC, SPF, and DKIM aligned with your brand namespace.

For regulators and licensing authorities, this visible control over the digital environment demonstrates strong governance over customer interaction points. It shows you are proactively managing brand integrity, compliance, and player protection which are all vital factors for continued licensing and public trust.

For instance, a gambling operator could register a domain to provide verifiable licensing data or integrate regulator authentication pages, ensuring customers can confirm legality in their jurisdiction directly on your domain.

SEO and Data Benefits

Search engines treat dotBrand TLD domains the same as traditional ones. Owning a dotBrand gives you the freedom to create keyword-rich, intuitive URLs that directly support your marketing strategy without the availability issues of crowded legacy domain spaces. You have the ability to spin up domain names, modify them or take them down at will, through your own registry interface, allowing for the capture of “in-the-moment” marketing activities.

Beyond discoverability, this proprietary namespace unifies analytics and user data collection, offering deeper insights into player behaviour across multiple subdomains while maintaining strict control over how and where that data is processed, a valuable asset in an industry beholden to privacy and compliance regulations.

Twice in a Lifetime? Preparing for the 2026 Application Round

ICANN’s previous gTLD application round was in 2012, and whilst we know the next opportunity will be in 2026, after that there is no visibility on any future opportunities to apply. Therefore, given the gaming and gambling sector’s rapid digital evolution, waiting for a third application window could mean years of lost opportunity and exposure to continued brand risk. A wait and see strategy may not stop another party, with legitimate reason to apply for a matching TLD, being given the right to own and operate a matching, or very similar string to your own trademarks.

Any gaming and gambling organisation who is contemplating an application for a dotBrand TLD needs to start the planning process as soon as possible, with the application window due to open in little over six months’ time in April 2026.

Engaging with an organisation such as Com Laude who are dotBrand experts, having worked on over 100 TLDs for clients in the previous round is a key step towards making a successful application. They will undertake an initial feasibility and landscape report to understand what potential risks there could be to an application for a specific brand or keyword, and what mitigating action could be taken before the application window opens

Gaming leaders who secure their own dotBrand TLD will stand out as pioneers in years to come, controlling not just their brand but their digital future.

Summary

Owning a dotBrand TLD is much more than a vanity project. It is a transformative strategic move in an era when trust, regulation, and digital identity define success. For gaming and gambling operators, it offers unparalleled advantages in brand protection, player trust, regulatory compliance, security, and innovation.

With ICANN’s 2026 round approaching, now is the time for forward-thinking gaming brands to claim their place at the top level of the internet, and ensure that every interaction, every bet, and every player touchpoint carries the assurance of authenticity that only a dotBrand TLD can deliver.