Exclusive Interview with Mike Waizman from NGM GAME: Turning Chaos into Casino Gold

Interview with Mike Waizman: Redefining iGaming Through Viral Culture

Forget everything you know about online casinos. Mike Waizman isn’t chasing jackpots; he’s engineering cultural phenomena. In this exclusive Casino.online interview, he reveals how memes, chaos, and viral soundscapes are reshaping iGaming’s future.

Mike’s Journey from Big Data to Viral iGaming Innovation

Joshua: Mike, to begin, could you tell us a bit about your journey into the gaming industry and what drew you to leading NGM Game’s innovation efforts in online casino and viral gaming?

Mike: My path into gaming didn’t start with poker or roulette — it started with pure, unfiltered growth. I came from the world of big data and high-velocity marketing, particularly from Yandex, where speed and scale aren’t buzzwords but a daily survival strategy. When I joined NGM Game, I saw a company with a strong foundation in iGaming but with massive, untapped potential at the intersection of traditional casino content and the new, ultra-viral culture.

I was attracted by this contradiction: how do you take the strict, regulated world of slots and inject it with chaos, humor, and the immediate appeal of viral content? That’s not marketing; that’s cultural alchemy. My job isn’t just to sell games — it’s to create cultural phenomena that we then translate into stable, regulation-friendly products. That’s what innovation at NGM Game is.

How BrainRot Mania Proved Memes Beat Jackpots for Retention

Joshua: BrainRot Mania became a TikTok phenomenon overnight. What was the most surprising player behavior your analytics uncovered — the data point that proved memes can drive retention better than any jackpot?

Mike: The most surprising thing about BrainRot Mania wasn’t how quickly people arrived — it was why they stayed. We expected virality to bring users in, but we assumed retention would depend on traditional gameplay loops. Instead, the key driver was “social proof of participation.”

Players returned not for the next level or reward, but to create content about their gameplay. Our analytics showed that users who recorded and posted videos of their most absurd losses or wins had 40% higher D7 retention than those who simply played. A meme is a currency of attention.

We realized jackpots appeal to greed, but memes appeal to identity — and identity is a far stronger engine for long-term retention. We stopped just making games; we started making “content factories.”

The Unconventional Launch Strategy Behind Diamond Makers’ 10 Million Users

Joshua: Diamond Makers hit 10 million users at record speed. Without revealing trade secrets, what was the unconventional tactical move during launch that traditional studios still cannot wrap their heads around?

Mike: Traditional iGaming studios launch a product and then start promoting it. At NGM Game, we do the opposite: we launch the community long before the product.

For Diamond Makers, we didn’t spend millions on classic advertising. Instead, we built a closed “club” of 500 micro-influencers and “degenerates” obsessed with the idea of “cracking” the algorithm. We gave them early access to a nearly empty game — essentially a beta with minimal functionality but maximum room for speculation.

The unconventional move was intentionally leaking a few “secret” screenshots and “accidental” lines of code that looked like hints or Easter eggs tied to a future jackpot. This triggered a wave of “investigations” and “conspiracy theories” across Discord and Telegram.

By launch day, those 10 million users arrived not because they saw an ad, but because they felt like insiders of a story they themselves had fueled. We didn’t sell a game — we sold the feeling of privileged knowledge.

Turning Viral Chaos into Regulator-Approved Slot Hits

Joshua: How does NGM Game turn a chaotic meme trend into a polished, regulator-approved slot without losing the spark that made it viral?

Mike: This is our biggest challenge — and our superpower. The secret lies in splitting the process.

First, we operate like an unrestricted creative agency: our Viral Lab takes a meme, a trend, or a sound and creates the rawest, most chaotic, most viral version for social media. This is the BrainRot phase — pure, unfiltered hype.

Then, once the trend hits critical mass, our iGaming team steps in. They take the “soul” of the meme — its visuals, sound cues, and core mechanics — and translate it into the language of regulated slots. If the meme’s key trait is speed, we build ultra-fast spins. If it’s absurdity, we embed it into bonus rounds.

We never regulate the meme — we regulate the container around it. We preserve the spark in the design and sound, but ensure full compliance in math, RTP, and payout mechanics. The player gets a familiar viral experience wrapped in a safe, legal structure.

Building a Team Fluent in Gen Z Culture and Internet Dialects

Joshua: Your team seems fluent in Gen Z culture. How do you find and cultivate talent that instinctively understands Twitch drops, Discord raids, and the 3-second attention span?

Mike: We don’t look for “experienced iGaming specialists”; we look for digital natives. Our hiring process is unconventional. We don’t judge résumés; we judge digital fingerprints.

We hire people who:

1. Run successful — even niche — TikTok or Twitch channels.
2. Moderate or actively participate in major Discord servers.
3. Can explain why the “Sigma Male” meme is outdated and why “NPC streaming” is the next big thing.

We don’t teach them marketing — we teach them compliance. We take their instinctive understanding of culture and give them the tools to operate within the law.

We built an internal program called Cultural Translator, where young staff teach industry veterans and vice versa. It’s a two-way flow of knowledge that ensures we always speak the latest dialect of the internet.

Why the Future of iGaming Lives Inside Streaming Platforms

Joshua: Five years from now, will iGaming’s biggest hit live inside a casino app, on a streaming platform, or in the metaverse? Defend your position.

Mike: Five years from now, the biggest iGaming hit will live inside a streaming platform, but with metaverse-like functionality. Casino apps are too narrow. Full metaverses are too heavy and not widely adopted.

The future is Gamification of Attention. Twitch, YouTube Shorts, TikTok — these are already the world’s biggest “casinos,” where attention is the currency. We’ll see iGaming products fully integrated into these platforms.

Imagine watching a stream where an interactive, compliant slot appears inside the player — synced with the streamer’s actions. Not “Twitch Drops,” but “Twitch Slots.” This will be a “micro-metaverse” inside the stream: viewers interacting, betting on streamer actions (social gambling), all without leaving their familiar environment.

It blurs the line between entertainment and gambling, making it social, instant, and native.

Replacing Outdated Casino Tropes with Digital Chaos and Creativity

Joshua: If you could erase one overused casino trope and replace it with something fresh on Day One, what would disappear — and what would take its place?

Mike: I’d erase the trope of “rich and boring.” The gold bars, champagne, yachts, tuxedoed gentlemen — it’s outdated and alienates younger audiences. It says, “This is for the already successful,” not “This is for those hungry for success.”

I’d replace it with the trope of Collective Chaos and Creativity. Instead of showing one winner on a yacht, we’d show a community “breaking” the game together or creating the funniest meme about it.

Visually think cyberpunk, street art, glitch art. Replace gold bars with NFT tokens, tuxedos with unique skins. We should sell not luxury, but status within a digital tribe.

Why Mike Created “Neuroded” — and What He Shares with the Industry

Joshua: Your Telegram channel “Neuroded” has become required reading — even for the non-Russian speakers on my team. What inspired you to create it, and how do you decide which hard-earned insights to share publicly?

Mike: The channel was born out of frustration. I saw talented people in iGaming still operating by decade-old textbooks. They fear risk, fear virality, fear “BrainRot.” My goal is to demystify growth. I believe the industry benefits when the overall level of expertise rises.

I don’t share “secret formulas”; I share mental models. I talk about how we think, how we make decisions, how we analyze failures. I decide what to share with one simple rule: “If it can be copied, it’s not an insight.”

I’ll never share a specific creative or targeting setup. I share how we arrived at the idea. I share strategy, not tactics. Tactics expire in a week; strategy keeps you ahead.

And frankly, it’s also a great way for NGM Game to position itself as a thought leader in innovative iGaming.

The Unexpected Hobby That Helps Predict Viral Trends

Joshua: Outside the studio, what unexpected hobby or “rabbit hole” — music, memes, extreme sports — secretly fuels your instinct for spotting the next trend?

Mike: My rabbit hole is experimental contemporary music and sound design. Not pop — the bleeding edges: glitch, hyperpop, Jersey club. Sound is the first indicator of a cultural shift. Before a trend becomes a visual meme, it often begins as a sound fragment or a unique rhythm on TikTok.

I listen to how tempos change, how people distort sound, how they “break” audio. It gives me an instinctive sense of cultural resonance. If a sound feels both annoying and addictive, it’s ripe for virality.

That helps us at NGM Game not just follow trends but predict them — and integrate this “broken” audio into our games so they feel like “tomorrow.”

The Boldest Risk Mike Took — and the Lesson for Every Game Studio Founder

Joshua: Looking back at your boldest professional risk that paid off, what lesson would you whisper to every game studio founder staring at a blank roadmap?

Mike: I’d whisper: “Don’t optimize until you break something.” Our biggest risk wasn’t launching BrainRot Mania — it was killing our most stable but boring product, which generated 15% of revenue. Everyone said it was madness.

But that product consumed 30% of our resources and, worse, polluted our culture. It forced the team to think “safely.” Killing it freed resources and, more importantly, mental space to create something truly new.

The lesson: inertia is the most expensive asset. Don’t fear breaking what works “well enough.” If you’re not creating something that feels slightly insane and potentially disastrous, you’re probably doing what everyone else is doing.

On a blank roadmap, there should be one word: "Chaos.” And then: “Control it.”