Swedish-founded gaming giant delivers dominant performance at annual awards ceremony by also collecting Best Music/Soundtrack Award for Hugo Legacy

Play’n GO, the world’s leading casino entertainment provider, was last night crowned Game Studio of the Year at the CasinoBeats Game Developer Awards in Valletta, Malta for the second consecutive year, one of two awards won by the company on the night.

The Game Studio of the Year award is testament to Play’n GO’s outstanding 2023 performance, which saw the studio release more than 50 premium titles, increase its market share globally, and continue its rapid growth in the US by the award of new state licenses and operator partnerships.

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Hugo Legacy also picked up a gong for its unique soundtrack, performed live by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra in Prague, and is further testament to the fine attention to detail and boundless effort that goes into game development at Play’n GO.

The company posted both its most successful month in its near 20-year history, and it’s record number of rounds played in a single day in late Q4 of 2023, and these awards are testament to the consistent excellence displayed by the legendary game studio.

Ebba Arnred, Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Founder, Play’n GO, said: “We’re honoured to be on the receiving end of these awards, and it is particularly pleasing to receive Game Studio of the Year for the second year running.

“Seeing Hugo Legacy’s unique soundtrack acclaimed in this way is also very special. It is testament to our firmly held belief that every detail matters when it comes to game design and entertaining our players, from the stories we tell, to the audio we build into our games. We want to push the boundaries of what’s possible in entertainment, and the Hugo Legacy soundtrack is a perfect example of our commitment to that mission.

“These awards are testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone at Play’n GO, and this is encouragement for all of us to double down and make 2024 an even better year for the company. We’ll be back for the three-peat next year!”

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Sumsub, a global full-cycle verification platform, released its 2024 iGaming Fraud Report, with updated identity fraud numbers and predictions for the industry. According to findings, the most popular fraud schemes in the iGaming industry are bonus abuse, affiliate fraud, illegitimate chargebacks, money laundering and account takeovers.

Key findings of Sumsub’s 2024 iGaming Fraud Report include:

• Between 2022 and 2024, fraud in the online gaming sector increased 64% year-over-year on average.
• By country, Bangladesh leads the fraud charts in Q1 2024 with a whopping 8.5% of all applicants being fraudsters, followed by Indonesia (8%), South Korea (6.6%), Pakistan (6.1%), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (6%).
• Selfie mismatch is the most frequent type of fraud attack in gaming, representing 73% of all detected fraud in Q1 2024.
• AI-powered deepfake scams are advancing at unprecedented rates, having grown 10x between 2022 and 2023.
• Money muling remains the most widespread fraud scheme.

“Due to the growth of sophisticated scams and increase in the overall fraud rates in the iGaming industry, simple KYC checks are no longer a guarantee of players’ genuine personas and platforms’ robust protection. To ensure companies best avoid fraud scenarios and remain safe and compliant, they must deploy user identity verification at the onboarding stage in addition to betting pattern analysis and ongoing transaction monitoring,” Kris Galloway, Head of iGaming Product at Sumsub, said.

According to Statista, in 2024, the revenue of the online gambling market is expected to exceed $100B. By 2029, the number of users is predicted to reach 281.3M globally. Between 2022 and 2023, fraud losses for mobile casinos and betting platforms totaled $1.2B. With regulations becoming stricter, leading to millions in fines paid by iGaming platforms every year and license revocations, it is obvious that businesses that choose to settle for minimal defenses will likely suffer heavy financial and reputational losses.

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“A combined approach is the best bet against advanced iGaming fraud. Every step of the user lifecycle must be protected—from initial sign-ups to the withdrawal stage. That involves KYC, behavioral intelligence, device fingerprinting, database checks, and more. Sumsub combines all the necessary checks within its full-cycle verification platform tailored to the needs of gaming platforms and operators, ensuring advanced fraud protection and a smooth player journey,” Andrew Novoselsky, CPO at Sumsub, said.

NOVOVISION tournament is the latest addition to the extensive suite of gaming management applications comprised in NOVOMATIC’s visionary NOVOVISION casino management solution.

The functionalities include detailed settings for the game types, chips, rounds, buy-ins and a dynamic prize calculation as well as sophisticated table and player management, thus significantly reducing the administrative effort and making the organisation of live table tournaments basically child’s play. The application also enables operators to manage the tournament display content as well as messaging and sound notifications for an unlimited number of screens across their venue.

Via this intuitive system app, operators can monitor and control all tournament details live and in real-time. Timers indicate the current duration or time left to start specific events while other actions during the ongoing tournament, e.g., reseating, removing, adding players or manually shortening the tournament by skipping individual rounds, just require a few clicks in the system. All tournament events are tracked in real-time and instantly displayed in the “history” tab.

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NOVOVISION tournament supports a variety of card games, e.g., Poker variants, Black Jack, Baccarat/Punto Banco, and is fully integrated with the NOVOVISION cashdesk for the tournament registration as well as the players’ buy-ins & prize wins directly via their NOVOVISION wallet.

Jens Einhaus, Sales Director NBS, said: “Poker tournaments are hugely popular casino events, but anyone who has ever run one knows how much effort and attention to detail goes into organising it smoothly. The atmosphere on the floor is tense enough and there is no room for delays and mishaps. With our new NOVOVISION tournament module, operators can fully rely on the system to guide them through all the tournament events and settings. I am absolutely convinced that operators will love the ease of use and players will enjoy the smooth operation and clear real-time display of information.”