From the upcoming Fury of Anubis mega release to a live casino operation that’s tripled in size since 2019, here’s what Pragmatic Play is actually doing in 2026 and the strategic plays driving it.
Eleven years in, Pragmatic Play is having its biggest year yet. There’s a new Egyptian-themed mega release dropping in June. A Big Bass title that coincides with the football World Cup is already out. A first-of-its-kind Korean-inspired live baccarat game has just gone live. And behind all of that, a live casino operation that’s tripled in size since 2019 and is on track to triple again before 2028.
For a studio that launched in 2015 with a focus on mobile slots, the breadth of what’s happening in 2026 says a lot about where the business is heading.
How Pragmatic Play got here
Pragmatic Play officially launched in 2015, headquartered in Gibraltar and privately owned by a group of investors led by Veridian (Gibraltar) Limited. Co-founder Julian Jarvis has been CEO from the start. Before Pragmatic Play, Jarvis worked at AOL Europe through the AOL Time Warner merger and was later recruited in 2004 by the founders of what became PartyGaming. He brought a regulated-markets mindset into the new company from day one.
That mindset shaped the strategy. The original focus was clear: high-quality slots built for mobile, distributed through regulated markets. It was a bigger bet than it sounds at the time. Plenty of suppliers in 2015 were still chasing volume through lighter-touch territories where the regulation was thinner and the revenue came quicker. Pragmatic Play went the other way and pushed hard for licensing in the markets that mattered to serious operators. The UK first, then Malta, Italy, Sweden, Romania, and a long list of regulated territories since, including Ontario and Brazil.
The early years were about laying foundations. Mobile-first design. A release cadence operators could rely on. Identifying the franchises that would eventually scale into its biggest brands. By 2017 and 2018, the catalogue had genuine hits. Big Bass was emerging as a phenomenon. Sweet Bonanza and Gates of Olympus came shortly after and quickly became some of the most-played slots on the market.
In 2019, the company made the move that has defined the second half of its history so far. It launched live casino operations with around 50 tables and started building a parallel business alongside the slots catalogue. Today, Pragmatic Play runs more than 500 live tables and sources say it has plans to add over 1,000 more in the next two years. Studio locations are scheduled to grow from five to nine over the same period.
The result is a supplier that now distributes thousands of games through a single API integration to operators across more than 30 regulated markets, in over 30 languages and across all currencies. Partner platforms range from major operators like Flutter Entertainment and Entain through to regional brands and aggregators, reaching millions of players every day.
The Fury of Anubis mega release
Pragmatic Play usually drops a top tier game every quarter if there history of releases is anything to go by. January 2026 brought Jelly Express, a fast-paced candy-land slot with win potential reaching 5,000x. April brought Gates of Olympus Roulette, which fused classic roulette with slot-style action and brought the popular slot franchise into a live casino environment.
June’s top tier release looks to be Fury of Anubis, and it’s the one the studio has been gearing up for. Set in the realm of the ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife, it’s a high-volatility slot built for players who like a feature-rich experience and a slow build to a big bonus moment. Egyptian and Greek mythology-themed slots are a long-standing favourite with players. Pragmatic’s bet here is that the right atmosphere and a distinctive feature set can lift the category out of the familiar.
Fury of Anubis launches on 25 June through Pragmatic Play’s single-API integration, distributed to operators across all major regulated markets.
A busy summer slate
Fury of Anubis isn’t launching in isolation. It headlines one of the busiest summer slates the provider has put together.
On 25 May, Pragmatic Play released Big Bass Football Bonanza. It’s the latest variant in the bestselling Big Bass series, timed to land while football is the only thing anyone’s watching.
On 18 May, the supplier debuted Seotda Baccarat. It’s a first-of-its-kind live casino title that combines the familiarity of traditional baccarat with a Korean-inspired Seotda card mechanic. Built for both new and experienced players, it’s aimed at Asian markets but rolling out internationally.
Other recent slot releases include Mr. Null’s Wicked Wares (5 May), Sweet Bonanza 2500 (30 April) and Big Bass Trophy Catch (16 April). Each game is a mix of original titles and new variants. Building on existing franchises is a trusted strategy that Pragmatic Play has built its catalogue around: take a game that works, find a fresh angle, build a new version, ship it. As they say, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it!
The slot-to-live casino crossover is the strategy to watch
If there’s one strategic move worth paying attention to in 2026, it’s what Pragmatic Play is doing with its biggest slot IPs in the live casino space.
Sweet Bonanza CandyLand was the first major crossover, bringing one of the most recognisable slots in the world into a live, interactive game show format. Gates of Olympus Roulette pushed the idea further, fusing classic roulette with the lightning-bolt-and-multiplier energy of the original slot.
Branded live game shows are increasingly common across the industry. The difference is that most suppliers don’t have the slot IP heritage to make the format work convincingly. Pragmatic Play does, and that’s turning into one of its clearer competitive advantages.
Expect more crossovers to come.
Slots and live casino
The numbers behind all this are worth pausing on. Pragmatic Play’s slots library runs into the thousands of titles. The major franchises driving most of the engagement are Big Bass, Sweet Bonanza and Gates of Olympus, with Gates of Olympus Super Scatter ranking as one of the company’s top-performing slots globally by the end of 2025. Fortune of Olympus, which launched in December 2025, has continued to rank highly throughout 2026.
They release approximately eight to nine new games every month, with one Top Tier or Mega Release announced each quarter. The cadence is part of what makes the catalogue feel inexhaustible to operators.
In live casino, the trajectory is steeper. From 50 tables in 2019 to more than 500 today, with a further 1,000-plus tables scheduled and the number of studio locations growing from five to nine over the next couple of years.
Awards and industry recognition
Pragmatic Play has been a consistent fixture on industry awards lists for years. The company won Online Casino Supplier of the Year for three consecutive years at the Global Gaming Awards London/EMEA between 2023 and 2025.
By mid-2026, the company had already picked up 18 award wins, on top of 39 in 2025 and 35 in 2024. Recent 2026 wins include Brand of the Year at the IGA, European Software Supplier at the EGR Europe Awards, Online Casino Supplier and Online Slot of the Year at the GGIs, and Casino Content Provider at the Italian Gaming Awards.
What to watch for the rest of 2026
The next big release is expected in July and based on the pattern of 2025-26, it’s likely to be either another franchise extension (Gates of Olympus, Big Bass or Sweet Bonanza) or a left-field original. Both have worked for Pragmatic Play in different ways.
The bigger question is what shape the live casino crossover strategy takes from here. Two flagship IPs are already in live game show formats. A third would turn the crossover from a smart product play into a defining signature brand, and that’s the move worth watching.
Either way, for a company in its eleventh year, Pragmatic Play looks less like a maturing supplier and more like one that’s still just scratching the surface of its ambitions..
