LSports is cutting staff as co-founder and CEO Dotan Lazar reshapes the Israeli sports data company around artificial intelligence and automation.
Lazar announced the redundancies on 6 May in a LinkedIn post written in Hebrew, describing the pivot as one of the most difficult decisions of his tenure. He said AI and automation are “not just a tool for us — it is the core of our new strategy,” with LSports targeting leadership in real-time data collection and delivery across verticals beyond sport. The number of roles affected has not been disclosed.
A Deliberate Strategic Shift
Lazar acknowledged that LSports had grown significantly in recent years but said the pace of change in the wider market required a more decisive response. The stated goal is a leaner organisation that directs resources toward technology capable of generating real competitive advantage.
He called on industry peers to hire the departing staff, describing those leaving as “the best there is,” and committed to supporting them through the transition with what he described as sensitivity and respect.
The restructuring is not framed as a cost-cutting exercise. Lazar positioned automation as the foundation of LSports’ next phase rather than a reaction to financial pressure — a distinction that sets this announcement apart from several similar moves elsewhere in the B2B supply chain in recent months.
Product Expansion Context
The announcement follows a period of accelerated product development. In January 2026, LSports launched a prediction markets data feed aggregating real-time information from exchanges including Kalshi and Polymarket into a normalised format for sportsbooks. The feed spans markets across politics, finance, crypto, climate and health — a signal that LSports intends to expand its addressable market beyond traditional sports data well before this restructuring was announced.
Earlier in 2026, the company acquired StatScore, a Polish sports data firm, extending its scouting and collection network. LSports currently covers more than 15,000 leagues and over 3 million fixtures annually across more than 100 sports.
The company competes with Sportradar and Genius Sports, both of which hold official data rights agreements with major leagues. LSports has long positioned itself as a lower-cost alternative to rights-dependent providers, a model in which automated data collection carries direct commercial weight. The current restructuring accelerates that capability.
Broader Industry Pattern
The cuts at LSports sit within a wider wave of AI-linked restructuring across the iGaming supply chain. Bragg Gaming eliminated 12% of its global workforce in January 2026, citing a goal of becoming an AI-first company by 2027. DraftKings announced a company-wide reorganisation in February, with analysts noting a push to embed AI across internal and external functions. Evolution’s full-year 2025 results, which showed revenue flat and EBITDA down 9%, reflected how regulatory and competitive pressure is squeezing margins across the B2B sector and increasing the urgency of operational efficiency.
Across the wider technology sector, close to 80,000 employees were laid off in Q1 2026 alone, with roughly half of those cuts attributed to AI-driven changes in workflow and headcount planning.
For LSports, which lacks the official rights infrastructure of its two largest rivals, scalable automated data collection is central to the business model rather than peripheral to it. Lazar has not indicated a timeline for the transition or confirmed which functions have been affected.
Source: iGaming Republic
