Inside iGaming Hobbies

A C-level/Executive man from Europe is passionate about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and wants to try mountaineering, while his colleague from Latin America is into beekeeping. A woman in Sales/Business Development collects knives, while another professional in the same role collects antiques and used to play the trumpet. Interesting information, isn’t it?

Belatra Games and G&M News conducted an international survey from August 3 to August 12, focusing on the hobbies and interests of professionals in the iGaming sector. At the end of the month, they shared the results, giving an idea of how people working in one of the fastest-growing digital industries in the world spend their free time, what hobbies they like, what unusual activities they prefer, and what role these interests play in dealing with stress.

The survey included 54.3% men and 45.7% women, with 76.3% of respondents from Europe, 19.6% from Latin America, and 4.1% from Asia. Almost 68% came from four groups: C-level / Executive (19.8%), Marketing (18.7%), Sales / Business Development (15.4%) and PR & Communications (14.3%).

Games lead, sports follow, astrology surprises

Respondents could select as many current hobbies as they wanted from a list of more than 60 options. The results show a clear mix of digital and offline interests.

Video games came out on top, accounting for 6.1% of all hobby mentions. Reading followed at 5.6%, while strength training and going to the gym accounted for 5.3%. Hiking was next at 4.2%, followed by board games and specialty coffee tasting at 3.6% each. Cooking, content creation, dancing, yoga, running, drawing, pilates, and tennis were chosen slightly less frequently.

And then there were the surprises. Astrology accounted for 1.7% of all hobby mentions — slightly more than some conventional activities, including fishing, snowboarding, cycling and swimming.

Some hobbies appeared only once in the survey. These included American football, figure skating, psychology, walking, embroidery, hunting, knitting, golf, jigsaw puzzles, podcasting, streaming, airsoft, CrossFit, crochet, mountain biking and table tennis. Other one-off answers included beer, jewellery making, acting and theatre.

Physical activities form one of the strongest patterns in the responses. Gym and strength training, hiking, running, cycling, swimming, tennis, padel, football, skiing, snowboarding, surfing, boxing and dancing all feature across the results. There is also a clear appetite for more adventurous pursuits. Respondents mentioned mountaineering, scuba diving, wakeboarding, rock climbing, skydiving, bouldering, mountain biking, horseback riding, and motorsport.

What do iGaming professionals want to try next?

Current hobbies are one thing. The list of activities people want to try in the future tells a slightly different story.

Padel was the clear leader, appearing in 14.8% of responses. Golf followed at 11.4%, dancing at 9.6%, strength training/gym at 9.1%, and yoga at 6.8%. Swimming, skiing, surfing and horseback riding were also among the most popular choices.

But the interest in trying something new was not limited to sport. 3D printing was the most popular non-sporting activity, accounting for 8% of responses. Writing, photography, content creation and chess were also high on the list, while podcasting appeared in 4.8% of answers.

Among the more notable hobbies professionals would like to try in the future are embroidery, stand-up comedy, dog training/cynology, and keeping a memory journal.

And some respondents clearly have ambitious plans for their free time. One PR & Communications professional from Latin America named 11 hobbies they would like to pursue, ranging from basketball and boxing to drawing, embroidery, knitting and photography.

What are the most unusual hobbies among iGaming professionals?

This is where the survey becomes much harder to predict. Some of the most distinctive answers were rooted in niche forms of physical activity. Respondents mentioned harness dancing and body percussion, mountain biking and downhill skiing, and long-distance thru-hiking.

One female Sales/Business Development professional from Europe noted that pickleball is still relatively uncommon in her region and that she is actively trying to make the sport more popular there. Interestingly enough, her responses across the survey consistently leaned towards less mainstream hobbies.

Collecting was another recurring theme, but rarely in the most obvious form. A European Account Manager collects perfumes. A Latin American Sales/Business Development professional is interested in antiques. A European designer keeps sketchbooks from different countries, while a European marketing professional collects money from different countries. And one Latin American C-level/Executive professional has a collection of Star Wars memorabilia. One particularly unusual answer was collecting BDSM toys.

The creative answers were equally unexpected: recycled crafts and DIY home decor, colour correction, historical reconstruction, playing the drums, RPG chatbot design and vibe-coding. Other respondents mentioned birdwatching, Sudoku, Mafia, and even keeping animals as a hobby.

There were also several hobbies centred around animals and volunteering. A PR and Communications professional working in Latin America mentioned keeping a guinea pig, while a CRM and Retention professional from Europe shared that they used to keep snakes as pets and might take up the hobby again in the future. Theatre volunteering was another unusual pastime, mentioned by a woman from Europe working in Marketing.

Unusual hobbies from the past

But G&M and Belatra Games went a step further, asking participants about the most unusual hobbies they had ever pursued.

Some of the answers were hardly what you would expect from a job title. A C-level/Executive professional from Europe said he used to collect wine, but eventually gave his entire collection away. A woman from Europe working in Sales/Business Development collected knives. Another European C-level/Executive created his own board game, while a counterpart from Latin America once took up beekeeping.

There were also some truly unusual experiences. A man from Europe working in iGaming Media had swum with dolphins, while a Marketing professional from the same region had tried diving into icy water. A woman working in marketing at a European company said that she used to be fond of postcrossing. Another professional, but from Customer Support, noted that she studied Chinese in her free time.

Extreme activities formed a category of their own, including Muay Thai, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, skydiving, racing, shooting at a range, paragliding, and even flying planes.

Almost everyone says their hobbies help reduce stress

Despite the huge variety of answers, respondents were remarkably similar when asked what their hobbies actually do for them.

The main motivation was clear: 46.7% said hobbies help them relieve stress and recharge. Physical activity followed at 34.4%, while 27.8% said they simply enjoy what they do. ÷For 21.1%, hobbies provide valuable time for themselves, and 17.8% use them as a way to disconnect from work.

So behind the differences between padel, video games, astrology, beekeeping, and Star Wars collections, there is a common thread: hobbies give people a reason to step away from work and spend time on something that belongs entirely to them.

Why do people pursue their hobbies?

Social media was the most common source of new hobbies, accounting for 32.2% of responses. Almost as many said they find new interests by chance (31.1%), while 26.7% discover them through friends. Family (6.7%) and colleagues (3.3%) play a much smaller role.

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"We knew from the start that people working in such a dynamic industry would be curious, open-minded, and wonderfully different from one another. But as the responses came in, we were genuinely fascinated by just how much personality and individuality there was behind each answer. We also received a lot of positive feedback from our industry colleagues, and we would like to sincerely thank everyone who took part. It’s much more interesting to discover the person behind the professional title, because each of us is far more multifaceted than the role we hold at work," said the organizers.

The international survey conducted by Belatra Games and G&M News was the provider’s first step towards bringing the Belatra Adventure Club booth concept to life at SBC Summit Lisbon 2026.

The concept is closely connected to The Guy, Belatra’s recurring character featured in Blast the Bass, Ice Bass and Hunt the Bucks. He represents the traveller in all of us, always curious and ready to try something new. In each game, The Guy takes on a new hobby and discovers another side of himself. The fourth title featuring the character will be released just ahead of the event, adding a new chapter to his adventure.