The iGaming industry is never short of awards, but those truly voted on by channels, operators, and service providers are few and far between. The AffPapa iGaming Awards is one of them. On May 20, 2026, this award will welcome its fifth ceremony in Madrid, held concurrently with the AffPapa Madrid Summit. Simply put, 
this is an annual major test within the industry where votes are cast by feet, and the winners may not be the ones with the loudest ads, but they are definitely the most respected by peers.
If you often browse the PASA official website for event information, you might have noticed that every May, the European iGaming circle is extremely lively. And the AffPapa Awards are precisely a critical point for assessing the annual quality of various players.
Why is this award worth paying attention to?
Unlike other awards determined by judges behind closed doors, the AffPapa Awards play transparently: nominations and voting are all conducted openly online, and any practitioner can participate. The final results are not decided by a few experts, but by hundreds of peers who are actively running traffic, negotiating shares, and developing products, casting their votes one by one.
This mechanism naturally squeezes out any fluff. After all, you can beautify data in a PowerPoint, but you can't fool the channels that monitor conversion rates and player quality every day. Therefore, winning the Best Operator or Best B2B Service Provider of the Year at AffPapa is like receiving a quality certification recognized within the industry.
The award night is more than just receiving awards
The award ceremony itself is also designed as a highly concentrated social scene. Channel partners, operators, and B2B service providers crowd into the same banquet hall, and the moment the winners are announced on stage, the crowd below often starts a new round of resource networking. Winning teams naturally receive a wave of partnership invitations, and those who don't win also take the opportunity of the cocktail party to present their new plans to target customers.
This is the brilliance of Madrid Night—the awards are the prelude, but connection is the essence. The handshakes and toasts that night might just turn into tangible growth curves on the next quarter's report.
For those still watching, this award ceremony is also a barometer of the industry. Just by glancing at this year's winners, you can get a rough idea: which categories of traffic are on the rise, which service providers' products are most favored by operators, and where the channel circle is heading next. In the iGaming industry, where information disparity equals profit, the value of this glance could be much bigger than you think.
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This article is from "PASA-Global iGaming Leaders," a gambling industry news channel: https://t.me/pasa_news
Original in-depth gambling channel: https://t.me/gamblingdeep
Free data reports: @pasa_research
PASA Matrix: @pasa002_bot
PASA official website: https://www.pasa.news
