The Outsider Who Turned the Tables: Gurhan Kiziloz’s Path to $1.2bn Annual Revenue

Industries develop their own immune systems. Gaming has its established operators, regulatory veterans, and networks of executives whose relationships have been cultivated over decades. These structures serve legitimate purposes, experience matters, relationships matter, credibility accumulated over time matters. They also function, whether by design or effect, to protect incumbents from those who might disrupt them. Gurhan Kiziloz encountered these structures when he entered the gaming industry. Rather than seeking acceptance within them, he chose to build around them entirely.

Kiziloz arrived without the credentials the industry typically demands. He had not risen through the ranks of an established operator or spent years cultivating regulatory relationships across jurisdictions. His earlier career had been in fintech, a sector where he experienced first-hand how regulatory complexity and institutional resistance could be wielded to protect existing players. The experience proved instructive. Permission, in industries designed to favour incumbents, is not freely given to those who might change the competitive landscape. It is withheld precisely from the people who need it most.

The insight shaped how Kiziloz approached gaming. Nexus International was not built by seeking the industry’s blessing or waiting for established players to acknowledge its legitimacy. It was built by creating commercial results that demanded recognition regardless of whether recognition was offered. Spartans.com, the platform at the centre of Nexus, was designed around a straightforward proposition: outperform existing operators on the dimensions that matter to users. Payouts that process in seconds rather than the extended timelines tolerated elsewhere. Compliance infrastructure embedded from inception rather than retrofitted under regulatory pressure. User experience stripped of accumulated friction until what remained was fast, reliable, and worth returning to.

The approach required patience. Building credibility through performance rather than credentials takes longer than building it through relationships and institutional endorsement. Users had to discover the platform, experience its advantages, and choose to stay. Revenue had to accumulate through retention rather than marketing spend subsidised by outside capital. The validation Kiziloz sought came from customers rather than industry gatekeepers, and it arrived on a timeline he could not accelerate through networking or positioning.

The validation eventually came in a form that could not be disputed. Nexus International generated $1.2 billion in revenue in 2025, placing it among the significant operators in the gaming industry. The company that entered without pedigree now competes for the same users as operators who have been building their positions for decades. The credentials Kiziloz lacked when he entered have been replaced by performance that speaks for itself.

Megaposta demonstrated that the approach could translate across markets with different characteristics. Brazil presented its own barriers, regulatory requirements, local preferences, established relationships between operators and distribution partners. Global companies have historically struggled there, often treating the market as an extension of their international platforms rather than an environment requiring dedicated investment and localisation. Kiziloz took the opposite approach. Megaposta was built specifically for Brazilian users, with local payment methods, Portuguese-language experience, and content calibrated to regional preferences. The localisation went beyond surface adaptation to shape the product at its core. Users who had grown accustomed to platforms that felt imported found one that felt native. The distinction proved commercially meaningful.

The pattern extended to blockchain with BlockDAG. The crypto industry has its own gatekeepers, technical communities, established protocols, networks of developers and investors who determine which projects receive attention and resources. Kiziloz entered without the credentials that typically grant access to these networks. He was not a cryptographer or a protocol developer. He was an operator who had built at scale in a different industry and believed that operational capability could translate across sectors. The scepticism this generated in some quarters was predictable. Kiziloz proceeded regardless, and BlockDAG is now competing with platforms that have been developing for considerably longer.

The common thread across gaming and blockchain is an unwillingness to wait for permission that might never arrive. Kiziloz has consistently chosen to build first and seek recognition after, allowing results to make arguments that credentials could not. The approach carries risk, industries can marginalise outsiders, and building without institutional support requires resources and resilience that not every founder possesses. It also carries potential rewards that conventional paths cannot offer. The $1.7 billion net worth Kiziloz has accumulated reflects complete ownership of companies built entirely on his own terms, without the dilution or compromise that seeking acceptance might have required.

The gaming industry did not invite Gurhan Kiziloz to compete. Nexus International’s $1.2 billion in revenue represents an answer to an invitation that was never extended, built by a founder who concluded that waiting for permission was itself the obstacle to be overcome.

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