Bell Wizard

How to play Bell Wizard

Frank Fantini, founder and publisher emeritus of Eilers-Fantini, thinks the change began before Covid. “There is a tendency to look at the world as pre-Covid and post-Covid,” he says. “But the decline in gaming began earlier than that with the slowdown in new jurisdictions and new projects.”

The US land-based casino market had begun to mature and the number of obvious new markets and projects was shrinking. Online gambling offered a new source of growth, particularly through the expansion of legal sports betting. That opportunity was quickly reflected in share prices.

The problem is that legalisation has not happened as quickly as expected, while taxes and competition have increased. “Online gaming has been affected by the broader re-rating of growth-oriented internet and software stocks,” says Chad Beynon, managing director and head of US research at Macquarie Capital. “But there has also been a genuine deterioration in expectations for parts of the sector.”

About Bell Wizard

Harrison Barrett, VP of business development, spoke to the iGB team at iGB L!VE 2026 to discuss the evolution of Soft2Bet’s MEGA platform, which started out as a purely gamification layer but has become “much more compelling than simply leaderboards, missions and point-based rewards”.

As Barrett puts it, MEGA is “ultimately a retention tool that helps our partners move away from heavy bonus and costs”.

With ice hockey and UFC-themed initiatives driving engagement in North America and a 45% lifetime value increase seen with the launch of MEGA Shoot, a player-versus-player simulation penalty shootout game initiative which launched during the World Cup, it is an exciting time for the Malta-based platform provider.

What is Bell Wizard?

Game in a Box brings those stages into a connected workflow, giving creators greater control over a game as it evolves. The platform is already being used internally by Yggdrasil and is being piloted with selected partners ahead of its wider market release.

Curwen points to Raptor 2 as an example of what this means in practice. The game went through no fewer than 17 versions during its first couple of weeks of development.

“Speed of iteration is probably the biggest difference,” he says. “Traditionally, every significant change can create another development cycle involving several different teams. With Game in a Box, the creator can iterate much closer to real time.”