iGaming
Soft2Bet Powers NEXT Summit: New York as Headline Partner for Third Consecutive Year
New York has firmly established itself as the definitive US-focused iGaming and sports betting event on the East Coast. As one of the first major industry gatherings of the year, NEXT Summit: New York brings together senior leaders shaping the future of regulated gambling across North America and beyond.
Now entering its third year, the Soft2Bet – NEXT collaboration has evolved into a long-term strategic alliance, reflecting shared growth, stability, and a joint commitment to advancing meaningful industry dialogue. What began as headline sponsorship has matured into an ongoing partnership that has consistently elevated the Summit’s seniority, relevance, and commercial impact.
NEXT Summit: New York 2026 is expected to welcome more than 1,500 industry professionals, with a highly curated audience dominated by C-level executives, founders, and directors. The agenda will focus on regulation, market entry, M&A, player engagement, brand trust, and long-term value creation in regulated markets.
As Headline Partner, Soft2Bet’s collaboration with NEXT.io is designed to foster a collaborative environment for sharing market intelligence and strengthening professional ties across the iGaming ecosystem.
Senior Soft2Bet executives will play an active role in the programme:
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Andrew Cochrane, Chief Commercial Officer at Soft2Bet, will deliver a keynote session, drawing on over two decades of experience across regulated markets, international expansion, and commercial transformation.
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David Yatom Hay, General Counsel at Soft2Bet, will join a panel discussion exploring the evolving dynamics of player engagement, offering a legal and regulatory perspective on one of the industry’s most commercially critical challenges.
Pierre Lindh, Co-Founder and Managing Director of NEXT.io, said:
“Reaching a third year with Soft2Bet as our Partner says a lot about the strength and stability of this relationship. We’ve grown together, we’ve scaled together, and we share the same belief that meaningful industry progress comes from collaboration, not just visibility. Soft2Bet consistently shows up with insight, ambition, and a genuine commitment to moving the industry forward, which is exactly what NEXT Summit: New York stands for.”
Andrew Cochrane, Chief Commercial Officer at Soft2Bet, added:
“Our partnership with NEXT.io is built on alignment, not just sponsorship. We share a belief that sustainable growth in regulated markets comes from open dialogue, transparency, and collaboration across the ecosystem. Supporting NEXT Summit: New York for a third consecutive year reflects our commitment to contributing to the industry’s long-term development — bringing operators, suppliers, and regulators into the same room to exchange insight and raise standards together.”
Soft2Bet is widely recognised for its innovative iGaming product development, including its proprietary Motivational Engineering Gaming Application (MEGA), and its expanding footprint across regulated global markets. The continued headline partnership reinforces the company’s long-term commitment to North America and its active role in shaping the industry’s most important strategic conversations.
NEXT Summit: New York 2026 will also feature a dedicated side event, NEXT Focus: Emerging Verticals, alongside an expanded programme designed to maximise senior-level networking, deal-making, and knowledge exchange.
The post Soft2Bet Powers NEXT Summit: New York as Headline Partner for Third Consecutive Year appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Casino Content
QTech Games expands BNG distribution rights to rest of world
QTech Games has expanded its partnership with casino game supplier BNG to cover Rest of the World (RoW) distribution, extending an existing agreement between the two companies.
BNG’s full portfolio is already integrated into the QTech Games platform. QTech highlighted titles including 3 Super Hungry Pandas and Coin Tornado as part of the content available to operators through the aggregator.
The CEO at BNG, said: “QTech Games is a respected and forward-thinking aggregator with an impressive client base, and we’ve been taken with the work they’ve done for us to date. Which is why we’ve now widened the scope of the agreement to include a full global expansion. And we can’t wait to take further advantage of their progressive platform to showcase our varied content to a truly international audience.”
Philip Doftvik, CEO at QTech Games, added: “We’re thrilled to have deepened our collaboration with BNG, and it’s an honour to open the door to their wider RoW distribution rights across markets which we know intimately. BNG is an emerging force and source of vibrant, varied and visually stunning games which are built on their decade’s worth of hard-won experience, securing their rise as a top player in this thriving gaming market.
“Delivering the finest and most engaging igaming experiences is a defining hallmark of our aggregation platform. And we look forward to watching how these games connect with even more diverse player groups worldwide.”
The post QTech Games expands BNG distribution rights to rest of world appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
AI
Slotmatic previews Pidiots in London during EGR week with live tournament test
The studio frames the 3 June showing as an early prototype and engagement experiment, not a full launch.
Slotmatic will stage a live preview of its new slot universe, Pidiots, on 3 June in London during EGR Awards week, alongside what it says will be the first tournament built around the title. The company positions the activation as a public test of how it wants to launch and iterate slots, rather than a conventional release.

Slotmatic says the EGR-week build is intentionally an early preview and that the “full Pidiots experience” is expected to evolve over the coming months. The studio describes a roadmap built around recurring characters, evolving mechanics, adaptive feature systems, tournaments and creator-oriented interactions. It characterises the London showing as “a prototype, a public laboratory, and a live engagement test.”

The press release ties the title’s design to social and creator behaviour, with a cast Slotmatic calls “The Gang of Five” and visuals it says reference meme culture, streaming and internet-native aesthetics. The stated aim is to create characters that can live beyond the base game across tournaments and social content, framing the IP as a broader “slot saga” rather than a standalone title.

Alongside the content layer, Slotmatic pitches what it calls a shift toward a “Slot Intelligence Layer” spanning creation, behavioural analysis, feature testing, deployment and live evolution. CTO Domenico Vacchiano argues feature architecture will drive differentiation, saying: “A feature is not decoration. It is engineered attention.” He also claims the company is exploring predictive modelling to simulate engagement outcomes before launch, adding: “True innovation is not predicting the future. It is reducing the cost of uncertainty.”
Slotmatic says its proprietary AI engine, AGENTIX, is built for slot modelling, feature logic and behavioural simulation, and that it is progressing through RNG certification, RGS certification, game certification and security testing, with “ISO 27001-oriented security infrastructure development for UK and Italian regulated markets.” The company also claims an engineering ecosystem of around 100 professionals contributing across AI systems, game development, predictive systems and infrastructure.
The post Slotmatic previews Pidiots in London during EGR week with live tournament test appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Asia
PG Soft signs on as sponsor for SiGMA Asia 2026 in Manila
PG Soft has been named as a sponsor of SiGMA Asia 2026, set to take place at the SMX Convention Center in Manila.
According to the company, the sponsorship package includes branding in the venue lobby and a 60-second branded video broadcast inside the exhibition hall across 14 hanging HD screens during the two-day expo.
PG Soft said the commercial partnership is part of its focus on engaging with Asian markets and supporting SiGMA’s networking aims for the global iGaming community.
A PG Soft spokesperson said: “SiGMA Asia is a must-attend event on the iGaming calendar, and Manila is one of the most exciting markets in the region. We’re very pleased to be supporting this summit and look forward to presenting our brand to the influential audience that SiGMA Asia continues to attract.”
The post PG Soft signs on as sponsor for SiGMA Asia 2026 in Manila appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
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