Industry News

Developing slots with player safety in mind

Published

3 years ago

October 18, 2022

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Light & Wonder’s VP Game Development Rob Procter describes how the slot development process is influenced by progress in safer gambling policy and best practice

Keeping players safe is of paramount importance for every stakeholder in the gaming business.

It is a factor that is at the forefront of regulatory and advertising codes in markets around the world, with European Safer Gambling Week serving to bring the issues at play under an especially sharp focus. At Light & Wonder, it is our firm belief that the creation of safe, sustainable playing environments is a necessity if our industry is to continue to flourish worldwide.

We see online gaming as a firm part of the overall entertainment ecosystem. Within this environment, players must be made to feel comfortable enough to play responsibly, having enjoyed an experience that they feel has given them value for their money.

Player safety is about far more than simply being compliant and doing the bare minimum to stick to a set of regulations. It is our belief at Light & Wonder that player safety should be hard-wired into our overall entire content strategy. Within our creative teams, we are always cognisant of the new features and mechanics that we are putting into games and the ways in which they will interact with the player to enhance entertainment levels while also keeping them safe from potential harms.

Landscape

In recent years, the landscape has changed markedly in terms of widespread awareness of the need to protect players. If you look at the example of the UK, buying directly into a bonus feature was prohibited by the Gambling Commission of Great Britain a few years ago, which necessitated a change in approach for game suppliers. We have been focusing strongly on providing compelling experiences within slots to all levels of players across all regulated markets, without them having to stake to high levels, or play for longer in order to access certain features. We don’t want players to feel that a certain level of investment in a slot is a necessity and that numerous spins must be undertaken before a certain level of potential is reached within a game. It is about approaching game design with an ethical, fair mindset, and this comes to the fore when deciding on the distribution of RTP and the way a slot’s mechanics interact with the base game.

Our desire is that we provide players at all stake levels with a positive experience and to show that any top-ranking bonus is attainable by any type of player. Attractive features can no longer only be on offer to the player who is prepared to spend more time and money on their stake – on any given game.

Across all channels

Restrictions in land-based gaming are different in nature compared to the online world, while also varying across different markets. Throughout the process of designing an omni-channel game, we ensure that our content behaves in the same way as our native digital titles with regard to enhancing the game experience, without putting the player in harm’s way.

At Light & Wonder, my colleagues in the land-based creative teams have the same perception of safer gambling as we do in iGaming. We are able to take mutually beneficial learnings as business units, looking at how the land-based teams have incorporated RTP splits and features and mechanics changes, and utilizing those within the online sphere.

Pitfalls

Naturally, operators have a strong imperative to uphold their social responsibility commitments, and to remain as compliant as possible to the regulators. As we see it, though, suppliers certainly have their own part to play in providing operators with content that has player safety already built-in, through entertaining features that can be accessed at all staking levels. Furthermore, we make sure we’re always present in industry working groups, pushing forward the development of best practice in responsible game design – this work is incredibly important to us, and something we’d encourage broader engagement with from others.

In most mature markets, regulation appears to have one direction of travel, towards greater restrictions. Yet in creating new solutions that can cater for evolving guidelines, there lies an opportunity for clever content creators to produce games with original and compelling math models and mechanics. Players can play safely and be entertained but it is up to all stakeholders in our industry to ensure to play their part to ensure that this is the case.

fintech

PayDo Launches Unified Payment Infrastructure Suite for Digital Businesses

Published

4 days ago

December 9, 2025

Niji Narayan

paydo-launches-unified-payment-infrastructure-suite-for-digital-businesses

Reading Time: 2 minutes

PayDo, a leading global payment ecosystem founded by Serhii Zakharov – who at just 25 became one of the youngest CEOs approved by the FCA to run an Electronic Money Institution in the UK, announced a series of strategic infrastructure launches designed to dismantle the costly complexity of modern payment stacks.

The releases—Direct SEPA & SEPA Instant access, USD SWIFT Accounts, Dedicated C2B Open Banking Collections Accounts and Direct VISA and MasterCard Acquiring—are not standalone products, but integrated components of PayDo’s unified platform.

For the first time, online businesses can access this comprehensive suite under a single contract, one technical integration and with a dedicated account manager, eliminating the operational burden of managing multiple providers.

The launches directly address the primary pain points of payment fragmentation: high costs from intermediaries, slow settlement times, compliance overhead and loss of control. By securing direct memberships and building proprietary technology, PayDo now offers businesses enterprise-grade infrastructure with the agility of a FinTech.

The new services include:

• Direct SEPA & SEPA Instant: As a direct SEPA member, PayDo provides native European processing with no intermediary routing. This ensures faster, lower-cost euro transactions with immediate settlement capabilities via SEPA Instant.

• USD SWIFT Accounts: Online businesses can now receive dedicated USD account details via the SWIFT network, significantly reducing delays and fees associated with cross-border USD transactions, a critical need for a variety of cross-border operating online businesses.

• Dedicated C2B Open Banking Collections Accounts: A pioneering innovation, this service revolutionises how businesses receive payments. It enables instant, direct bank-to-business transfers from customers, offering an alternative to card networks with correct funds tracking and allocation, lower costs and real-time settlement. Functionality supports processing of +100,000 daily transactions.

• Launch of Direct Acquiring: PayDo is now a principal member acquirer for both Visa and Mastercard. This direct relationship removes a layer of intermediaries, reducing processing costs, improving authorisation rates and giving merchants greater control and transparency over their card payment flows.

These services are delivered within PayDo’s unified ecosystem, which also includes its signatory innovation – non-redirect E-Wallet checkout. This earlier innovation provided merchants with full friendly-fraud protection without any rolling reserve requirements. The new ecosystem approach allows companies in sectors like e-commerce, IT services, marketplaces, gaming and other Fintechs to streamline their entire financial operations, turning payment management from a resource drain into a competitive advantage.

Serhii Zakharov, CEO and Founder of PayDo, said: “For years, businesses have been forced to stitch together a patchwork of payment providers, each adding cost, complexity, and delay. We believe the future is not in more fragmentation, but in intelligent unification. These launches are not just new features; they are the foundational pillars of a coherent ecosystem. We are giving our clients direct control over the core rails of finance—from SEPA and SWIFT to card acquiring and Open Banking—all through one partnership. This is how we eliminate the hidden tax of fragmentation and empower businesses to scale globally with clarity and efficiency.”

PayDo’s ecosystem now processes over €5B annually for over 1000 businesses, leveraging its full regulatory compliance in the UK, Canada and the EU. The company’s direct infrastructure model is proving that the next wave of Fintech growth will be driven by consolidation and seamless integration, not further division.

The post PayDo Launches Unified Payment Infrastructure Suite for Digital Businesses appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Free Bet

Meridianbet Reports Renewed Engagement in Custom Prediction Markets in H2 2025

Published

4 days ago

December 9, 2025

Niji Narayan

meridianbet-reports-renewed-engagement-in-custom-prediction-markets-in-h2-2025

Reading Time: 2 minutes

While prediction markets have recently attracted increased public attention across politics, finance and culture, Meridianbet, part of the Golden Matrix Group has supported user-generated real-world prediction markets for more than a decade through its proprietary product branded as Free Bet.

For the second half of 2025, customer participation on the Free Bet platform has recorded an 11.5% increase in ticket volumes, reflecting renewed engagement across prediction markets tied to major elections, entertainment outcomes, weather forecasting and novelty-event propositions. Free Bet continues to represent a relatively small and non-material portion of Meridianbet’s overall wagering activity.

Free Bet allows customers to propose wagers on measurable real-world outcomes across sports, politics, entertainment awards, weather forecasting, financial milestones and social statistics. Once a proposed market passes regulatory, settlement and risk review, Meridianbet acts as the professional market maker, prices the odds and takes the lay side of each wager within the Company’s licensed sportsbook framework. This single-market-maker structure enables the delivery of prediction-market-style wagering to mass-market users while ensuring regulatory compliance, operational stability and standardised settlement.

In practical terms, customers initiate Free Bet markets by submitting their own proposed prediction events through Meridianbet’s platforms or retail network. Each submission is reviewed to ensure that the proposed event is lawful, ethically appropriate, clearly measurable and capable of unambiguous settlement under applicable regulatory standards. Only after passing these checks is the event accepted and priced by Meridianbet’s trading operators, who establish odds and offer the market to the customer for wagering.

Top Prediction Markets on Meridianbet

Over the past five years, Meridianbet customers have created and wagered on thousands of custom prediction markets reflecting major real-world outcomes across political cycles, cultural awards, financial milestones, weather forecasting and social trends.

Based on internal ticket volume and platform engagement data, the following five prediction markets have ranked among the most actively played on Meridianbet during this period:

U.S. Presidential Election

Binary outcome markets and related propositions tied to the U.S. presidential election results.

Global Entertainment Awards

Custom markets associated with major award outcomes including Oscars Best Picture and BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Weather Prediction Markets

Seasonal and location-specific forecasts, including snowfall occurrence and temperature benchmark outcomes during late winter and early spring periods.

Social Outcome Markets

Demographic and statistical propositions connected to public milestones, including birth-gender distributions during peak holiday periods and other large-scale social outcome measurements.

Regulatory & Availability Notice

The Free Bet product and related prediction market offerings are provided strictly in accordance with applicable national and local regulatory requirements and are available only in jurisdictions where such wagering formats are duly authorised by law.

Availability, market scope and wagering features may vary by location and regulatory regime. Certain jurisdictions may restrict or prohibit participation in custom prediction-based wagering products.

The post Meridianbet Reports Renewed Engagement in Custom Prediction Markets in H2 2025 appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

AI-Driven Optimisation

HilltopAds Introduces Dedicated iGaming Feature Suite and Managed Performance Service

Published

1 week ago

December 5, 2025

Niji Narayan

hilltopads-introduces-dedicated-igaming-feature-suite-and-managed-performance-service

Reading Time: < 1 minute

HilltopAds announced the rollout of a specialised feature set built exclusively for iGaming advertisers, reinforcing the company’s focus on performance-driven media buying across global markets.

At the center of the release are newly launched, ready-to-use white- and blacklists, curated from premium traffic sources that have consistently shown strong results for iGaming campaigns. These lists are derived from performance data across thousands of active advertisers and are designed to reduce testing time while increasing the predictability of campaign outcomes.

HilltopAds is also introducing a full-managed service, giving advertisers access to dedicated iGaming specialists who will set up, launch and continuously optimise campaigns based on individual KPI requirements. This service aims to support teams looking for deeper expertise, streamlined workflows or hands-off performance management.

To mark the launch, HilltopAds is providing a $2000 bonus for all direct iGaming advertisers making their first deposit of $5000 or more using the promo code IGAVCIP.

These updates complement HilltopAds’ existing capabilities for the iGaming sector, including:

• Massive Global Reach: Over 273B monthly impressions available across 250+ countries.

• Premium Direct Traffic: Access to 39,000+ vetted websites suitable for iGaming user acquisition.

• AI-Driven Optimisation: Automated tools focused on maximising bets, deposits and high-value player actions.

• Flexible Bidding Models: CPM, CPC and CPA Goal options tailored for scale and performance control.

• Specialised Network Infrastructure: Built to support consistent delivery, stable volumes and transparent reporting for regulated verticals.

With these additions, HilltopAds aims to provide iGaming advertisers with a more data-grounded, efficient and scalable environment for user acquisition.

The post HilltopAds Introduces Dedicated iGaming Feature Suite and Managed Performance Service appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.