“The biggest lesson of 2025 is that speed and reinvestment matter”

Product innovation, modern technology, and regulated market activity defined Soft2Bet’s operations throughout 2025. Over the course of the year, the company focused on scaling its platform, rolling out new brands, and advancing its gamification framework across casino and sportsbook verticals.

Speaking exclusively with Yogonet for this year-end feature, David Yatom Hay, General Counsel at Soft2Bet, reviews the company’s performance during 2025, discusses the issues that shaped industry conversation, and outlines how Soft2Bet is approaching 2026.

Looking back at 2025, how would you assess the year for the company? What are some of the major takeaways, highlights, achievements, or lessons learned over the past year?

2025 was a year of acceleration and proof. We demonstrated that our long-term bet on product innovation, modern technology, and regulated markets can scale very profitably.

On the financial side, we almost doubled the business year-on-year: EBITDA grew by 96% and revenue by 88%. In Q3 alone, EBITDA increased by 15% quarter-on-quarter and revenue by 7%, so the growth is not historical; it is the current run-rate.

Behind those numbers lies very real operational progress. Casino GGR from games grew by 129% year-on-year, and Live Casino GGR by 167%. Sportsbook turnover increased by 187% and Sportsbook GGR rose by 174% year-over-year, indicating that both pillars of the business are expanding, not just one vertical.

We launched four new brands in Q3, and strengthened marketing performance with double-digit growth in brand search, impressions and active players across key markets. Our operations achieved an 81% CSAT score with 100% native-language coverage, and we expanded our footprint with the addition of two new offices.

From a product standpoint, 2025 was the year we proved that our gamification framework, MEGA, is not just a nice feature but a growth engine. Across brands using MEGA, we saw more than 60% uplift in retention, around 66% growth in gaming revenue, and a significant increase in player lifetime value. When we started, we were hoping for a 10–20% uplift; the results were several times higher, which is why we are doubling down on our efforts. One more important milestone was the launch of three new MEGA Engines — MEGA Round, MEGA Rally, and MEGA Island — each designed to enhance player engagement in a different way.

• MEGA Round brings instant gratification and recurring excitement through a Wheel-of-Fortune mechanic that delivers personalized rewards and up to 25% retention growth.
• MEGA Rally turns gamification into a real-world spectacle: an autonomous, physical racing machine powered by smart cameras and neural-network technology, offering real-time, unpredictable outcomes.
• MEGA Island merges social gameplay and betting dynamics, allowing players to build, raid, and compete in a world that evolves infinitely.

Together, these innovations demonstrate how gamification can move beyond bonuses — into fully immersive, localized entertainment ecosystems.

The biggest lesson of 2025 is that speed and reinvestment matter. Many operators run on legacy stacks, release once a month, and treat innovation as a cost. We have built a flexible platform that allows us to release multiple times per day and reinvest profits into new experiences. Nine out of ten experiments may fail, but the one that succeeds – MEGA is a good example – changes the trajectory of the business.

Which issues and trends would you say dominated the conversation this year? Are there specific trends, markets, or technologies that you believe will drive change in 2026?

In 2025, three themes dominated the conversation: regulation, differentiation, and player protection.

First, regulation in Europe and North America continued to tighten. More markets are either regulated or in the process of regulating, which raises the bar for compliance, technology and local operations. You cannot win with a “one-size-fits-all” approach; you need local teams, native support, and technology that can adapt quickly to each jurisdiction’s requirements.

Second, differentiation became critical. For many years, every operator had the same toolbox: the same games, payment methods and layouts. In that environment, competition degenerates into bonus wars and paid acquisitions. Our view is that the only sustainable differentiation now is product–unique experiences on top of the standard content. That’s where gamification, personalization and speed of delivery become strategic, not cosmetic.

Third, responsible gaming moved from being a compliance checkbox to a core part of product strategy. With better data and AI, operators are expected to detect risks earlier and design journeys that keep entertainment at the center while protecting vulnerable players. At Soft2Bet, player protection is not just a principle but a measurable practice. We regularly document and share our case studies on how technology enhances safety and compliance across our brands — for example, in our recent partnership with SEON, where AI-driven fraud prevention reduced manual reviews by 40% and improved detection speed by 20%, creating a more secure and seamless player experience.

Looking ahead to 2026, we see several forces reshaping the industry:

• More regulation and localization – particularly in North America and key European markets. Operators with strong regulatory operations, local compliance intelligence, and robust player-protection systems will gain a decisive advantage.
• Gamification and meta-layers – the industry today uses maybe 15–20% of gamification’s potential; at Soft2Bet we are already close to 80%, and that gap will become very visible as more operators try to catch up.
• AI-driven personalization – real-time missions, offers, and content based on player behavior and risk profile, not just static segmentation.
• Mobile-app-first experiences – obvious in North America already, but Europe is rapidly moving the same way.
• Safer and more transparent gaming ecosystems – using the same data and AI that drive engagement to also power early-risk detection, adaptive limits, and responsible communication. As the industry matures, technology must serve both excitement and safety in equal measure.

In short, 2026 will reward companies that combine strong regulatory discipline, advanced player-protection standards, and fast, player-centric innovation.

What can we expect from Soft2Bet in 2026? What are the main challenges and opportunities you see in the gaming industry in the coming 12 months?

In 2026, you can expect three things from Soft2Bet: more localized experiences for our players, stronger product differentiation, and continued operational excellence.

On the market side, we will continue delivering the best localized player experiences. Our work in Ontario, for example, showed how integrating local culture and sports — such as our engagement with the Ottawa and CFL communities — helps create genuine added value for players.

On the product side, we will expand our integrated casino and sportsbook experience, built on our MEGA-gaming layer, which has been a cornerstone of our leadership for the past nine years. This means delivering new, seamless entertainment journeys powered by personalization and innovation. At the same time, our platform team will keep investing in speed, reliability and scalability so that we can continue to release new features multiple times per day while maintaining near-perfect uptime.

The main challenges ahead are regulatory complexity and market saturation, which make it harder to stand out. But this is where our experience in building strong, trusted brands — backed by years of B2C success — continues to be our advantage. Many operators also struggle with technology debt – it is difficult to move fast when your core stack is 10–15 years old.

Our opportunity is precisely that we started from a different place. We operate a modern platform, we have proved we can launch and scale brands quickly – four brands released in Q3 alone, with more planned – and we have a clear, data-driven story about how product innovation translates into higher retention, NGR and ROI for both our brands and our B2B partners.

Soft2Bet has a clear ambition to shape the next decade of iGaming – by delivering not only exceptional player experiences but also the highest standards of player protection, innovation, and compliance excellence.

Gamification remains one of your key differentiators. How do you envision this approach evolving in 2026, and what role will it play in shaping player engagement and retention across your brands?

For us, gamification is bigger than simple motivational features, such as badges or points. We are creating entirely new gaming experiences at the intersection of casino, sportsbook, casual mobile games, and the latest UI/UX trends.

MEGA started with a simple idea three years ago: to enhance player personalization, introduce innovative gamification mechanics, and drive differentiation in an increasingly competitive market — especially at a time when traditional loyalty programs are becoming less effective.

This is how we developed mechanics such as missions, levels, tournaments, and a personalized progression system layered on top of standard gaming products. Over the past two years, we have rolled it out and measured its impact carefully across multiple brands.

The results are clear: over 60% uplift in retention, around 66% higher gaming revenue, and a significant increase in lifetime value for brands that use MEGA compared to those that do not.

MEGA is not just a product — it’s the technological foundation for the next era of player experience. It proves that gamification, when driven by data and innovation, is a true growth engine, not a marketing slogan.

In 2026, we see MEGA and gamification evolving in several directions:

• Deeper personalization – We provide players with tailored gameplay, allowing them to enjoy the same game but with different requirements and rewards. This way, gamification turns into one of the responsible gaming tools.
• Social and team-based features – Leaderboards, chats, and team missions are now past, as we are offering a player-vs-player experience where players can raid each other or clash in a football match with their own teams.
• Responsible-by-design gamification – using the same engagement tools to encourage healthy behaviors: breaks, limits, transparency around time and spend, and early detection of risk patterns.
  
  

Today, we estimate that the industry uses only a fraction of gamification’s potential. Our goal is to keep pushing that frontier – to show that you can build richer, more entertaining and more responsible experiences at the same time. Casino and sportsbook brands that treat gamification as a strategic capability, not a checklist item, will see the biggest gains in engagement and retention — and we intend to stay well ahead of that curve.