Ryan Caruana has joined Loneon-headquartered betting company Smarkets, via its Malta office as head of technical compliance.
Announcing the next phase of his career on Friday on social media, he also bid farewell to PokerStars.
“It has been a pleasure working at PokerStars for the last five years, and I am very grateful for all the lessons learnt through the group’s rapid transition,” he said.
“I am now excited to move on to the next chapter with Smarkets,” he continued, remarking that the “product itself is what sold the move”.
During his five years at PokerStars, Mr Caruana rose through the company’s ranks, starting out as an operations manager, before being promoted to sports operations manager and then to senior sports operations manager.
He also had a four-month stint as UK account manager for ComeOn Group, where he was part of a small team responsible for the operational launch of the Cherry Casino brand in the UK.
Smarkets is a sports betting company that “processes billions of pounds in traded volume each year,” with a mission to provide betting services with a “core focus on price and product”.
Digitain is a sportbook and casino platform provider
His deep understanding of customer support, combined with his strong leadership skills, positions him well to drive innovation and continuous improvement in player engagement
Ian Galea is eager to embrace the opportunities and challenges ahead
This talent gap highlights both the resilience and the growing pains of Malta’s iGaming sector.