The Shift Toward Security-First Leadership Gains Momentum

Alex Tomic, co-founder of Alea, has been recognized as #2 on GamblingIQ's 2025 "Trusted 10", a global ranking that celebrates executives building the security-first infrastructure the iGaming industry needs to thrive.

Featured in the Game of Trust edition, the ranking highlights leaders who understand that sustainable growth comes from reliability and trust, not just innovation. Tomic joins an elite group including Jaakko Soininen of Finnplay (#1), Dmitry Starostenkov of EvenBet (#3), Michael Tobin of Continent 8 (#4), and Kris Saw of Kambi (#5), innovators driving uptime, scalability, and secure infrastructure across the industry.

The recognition comes as Alea deepens its strategic partnership with fellow "Trusted 10" leader Michael Tobin's Continent 8 Technologies, leveraging their global network and cybersecurity expertise to strengthen hosting, connectivity, and security resilience for Alea's customers.

"The industry has moved beyond the 'move fast and break things' mentality," said Alex Tomic. "Operators need infrastructure they can depend on, technology that scales without compromising security or stability. This recognition reflects our team's commitment to building solutions that work reliably, day after day, so our partners can focus on growing their business instead of managing technical complexity.”

According to James McDonald, CEO at GamblingIQ, Alea’s breakthrough has been to flip the aggregation model on its head. “By requiring games studios to integrate to its own reverse-integration framework, Alea enforces strict standards on tokens, retries and reconciliation before a single game goes live. It’s a governance-driven approach that delivers cleaner, more secure connections—showing why reverse integration is now a benchmark for trust in iGaming infrastructure and aggregation,” McDonald said.

Tomic earned recognition for advancing reverse-integration aggregation, a framework that brings 16,000+ games under unified security standards, and for Alea's role as a trusted technology partner to operators navigating an increasingly complex regulatory landscape.

Alea's approach centers on API governance and operational resilience: principles that have driven the company's partnerships with leading operators across 70+ markets. By requiring game studios to integrate with Alea's standardized system rather than adapting to each provider's unique requirements, the company has created cleaner, more secure connections that reduce risk and improve performance.

The ranking underscores a broader industry shift toward prioritizing trust and compliance alongside innovation. For Alea, it validates an approach built around empowering operators with the clarity and control they need to succeed.

This recognition belongs to the entire Alea team and the partners who trust us to handle their most critical infrastructure needs.