Who makes online casino games: fifteen studios recorded from their own pages and the GB register

Studios make the games; operators offer them

Online casino games are made by software studios that build a game once and license it to the casino operators whose websites carry it. The operator holds your account and pays your withdrawals; the studio wrote the game, its rules and its mathematics. The two are nearly always separate companies, and in Great Britain the law licenses them separately.

The Gambling Commission’s guidance on gambling software puts the statutory line in one sentence. Under section 41(1) of the Gambling Act 2005, “a person commits an offence if in the course of a business he manufactures, supplies, installs or adapts gambling software unless he acts in accordance with an operating licence.” Section 41(2) defines gambling software as “computer software for use in connection with remote gambling”, with gaming machine software excluded. The same page states that an operator providing facilities for gambling needs its own operating licence for that activity, separate from a gambling software licence, even where it makes its own software.

The studios describe the arrangement in the same terms. Evolution’s half-year report for January to June 2026 opens its company description with “Evolution AB (publ) develops, produces, markets and licenses fully integrated B2B Online Casino solutions to gaming operators” and counts “870 operators among its customers”. Play’n GO says on its About page that “we deliver our games to regulated casino operators in more than 35 jurisdictions worldwide”. Hacksaw Gaming’s homepage calls the company “a premium supplier of slots, scratchcards and instant win games to the online gaming industry”. None of them describes itself as a casino.

This page is an index of fifteen such studios, built from those self-descriptions and from the register the Commission keeps. It is not a ranking and it does not say whose games are better. Our guide to reading provider records explains the four fields a record needs (group, brand, legal entity, game title); this page fills those fields for named companies and shows where the documents disagree.

Sources: Gambling Commission: What is gambling software? · Evolution: Interim report January–June 2026 · Play’n GO: About us · Hacksaw Gaming: homepage.

Three licence activities describe a provider

The register does not carry a category called “provider”. It lists activities, and three of them do most of the work of telling a studio from a casino.

The remote gambling software licence permits a business to “manufacture, supply, install or adapt gambling software by means of remote communication”. The Commission’s page for that licence, last updated 6 July 2026, lists annual fees from £5,809 to £76,289 according to sales volume, with a new scale of £7,394 to £191,880 taking effect on 1 October 2026. A studio that sells games to British-licensed operators holds this activity or supplies through someone who does.

The remote casino game host operating licence covers a studio that runs the games on its own servers. The Commission’s wording is that it applies where “you host those facilities through other operators’ platforms” and “you do not contract directly with any of the customers who play the casino games you provide”. On the register this appears as “Game Host (Casino)”.

The remote casino operating licence is the operator’s licence. It “allows you to offer casino games to customers via a website, mobile phone, TV or other online service”, and the Commission’s test is contractual: “If you contract with any of the participants who use your gambling facilities (that is if any of those participants are your own customers) then you will need this licence”. On the register this appears simply as “Casino”.

Read against the twelve register entries in this index, the pattern is plain. All twelve hold Gambling Software. Eight also hold Game Host (Casino). Three, Apricot Investments Limited (trading as Microgaming), Playtech Plc and Relax Gaming Limited, hold a remote Casino operating licence, which is the activity a customer-facing casino needs, alongside their software activity. One, IGT UK Interactive Limited, holds Gambling Software alone. Playtech Plc’s entry runs to eight activities including bingo and real- and virtual-event betting. “Provider versus operator” is therefore not a type of company; it is a set of activities printed on one page, and a single company can hold both sides.

Sources: Gambling Commission: Remote gambling software licence · Gambling Commission: Remote casino game host operating licence · Gambling Commission: Remote casino operating licence.

How each entry was built

Every row in the index below was assembled the same way, on the same day, so that anyone with the source list can repeat it and get the same page.

Two source classes only. The first is the studio’s own published material: its About page, its site footer, an investor release or an acquirer’s completion announcement. The second is the Gambling Commission’s public register, read at the licence summary page for whatever legal entity the studio names. Where the studio names no entity, the register was searched on the brand name and the result, including “No results”, was recorded.

Recorded as printed. Where a studio’s footer and the register spell a name, an address or a licence reference differently, both versions appear and neither is corrected. Where a site served no readable content to an ordinary retrieval, or its robots rules refused it, that is the entry. The finding is that the page did not state the fact, not that the fact is false.

Ownership only where a party to it says so. Big Time Gaming’s ownership is recorded because Evolution’s own press release of 30 June 2021 says “Evolution has today completed the Transaction and acquired the shares”. IGT’s is recorded because Apollo’s release of 1 July 2025 announces completion. Where the studio’s page is silent and no acquirer’s page was found, the ownership cell says so.

Certification means wording or a logo on the studio’s page. A logo is recorded as a logo. Whether the named laboratory tested a particular game, version or feature is not something the page establishes, and the index does not pretend otherwise.

One date. Every page was retrieved on 18 September 2026. A row is only as current as that date, and the figures quoted from investor releases belong to the periods stated beside them.

Two limits. A register entry shows which activities a company is licensed for, not which games run under that licence. A studio’s claims about regulators outside Great Britain were recorded but not checked against those regulators.

The provider index

Fifteen brands, ordered by group. The first column is the name a player sees; the last two are what the documents say when that name is followed to a legal entity. Quotation marks mark verbatim wording from the page cited in the sources list.

Three brands in the table have no register entry of their own; their rows record the searches that were run and what their own footers say instead. That is not a gap in the index. It is the finding.

What the entries show side by side

A group name covers several brands, and the brands point back to one entity. Evolution’s brands page lists eight names. The sites for two of them, NetEnt and Red Tiger, are demo-play pages whose footers name Evolution Gaming Malta Limited, registration C 44213, and the Maltese licence MGA/CRP/187/2010. Neither footer gives a Gambling Commission account number, and the register returns nothing for either brand name. The register’s one Evolution entry is Evolution Malta Holding Limited, account 41655; Evolution’s own footer spells it “Evolution Malta Holdings Limited”. A reader who searches the register for the name printed on the game will not find it; a reader who searches for the account number will.

Big Time Gaming’s page says nothing about who owns it. The ownership is on Evolution’s side, in a completion release dated 30 June 2021 that records the shares issued to the sellers. The brand is on Evolution’s brands page. The register has no entry under the brand.

“Microgaming” is a trading name. The register’s single answer to that search is Apricot Investments Limited, Douglas, Isle of Man, licensed for remote casino from 1 November 2014 and gambling software from 11 February 2015. The company that appears to carry the modern catalogue, Games Global Operations Limited, is also in Douglas and has held software and game host activities since 15 February 2022. Microgaming’s own site is a demonstration site that names no company; Games Global’s served nothing but a title and a description. Whatever links the two companies, neither page retrieved on 18 September 2026 states it, and this index does not supply it.

IGT is fifteen entries and one change of owner. Apollo’s release of 1 July 2025 states that IGT’s Gaming & Digital business and Everi were bought for approximately $6.3 billion, that the combined enterprise is privately held, headquartered in Las Vegas and operating under the IGT name, and that the former parent, International Game Technology PLC, now does business as Brightstar Lottery. On the register, IGT UK Interactive Limited holds a single Gambling Software activity from 6 September 2024 with a Las Vegas head office, and a search for “igt” returns fifteen entries, among them International Game Technology PLC still trading as “IGT, IGT PLC”. The register records licences; it is not a corporate family tree.

Light & Wonder is six licensees. Authentic Gaming, Playzido and four LNW Gaming companies all trade as Light & Wonder on the register. The group’s own About page calls it an “American company”, and its first-quarter 2026 release names it “Light & Wonder, Inc. (ASX: LNW)”. Which of the six licensees supplied a given game is not something any of these pages says.

Two numbers from one company on one day. Pragmatic Play’s About page says “over 40 jurisdictions”; its homepage says “Certified or licensed in over 30 jurisdictions”. Both were live on 18 September 2026. Its news archive dates its first Gambling Commission software licence to 10 April 2017; the register entry for Pragmatic Play (Gibraltar) Limited starts on 30 January 2020 and prints no 2017 date. The index keeps both.

Small differences between footer and register. Hacksaw’s footer gives HGMT Ltd a Zebbug address; the register gives HGMT Limited a Msida address. Hacksaw’s footer prints its Commission reference ending -002; the register prints -007. Relax Gaming’s footer ends -015; the register, -016. Push Gaming’s footer names “Push Gaming Holding Limited”; the register names Push Gaming Holding Plc. The register is the one a reader can re-check, so it is the one to quote.

Playtech holds both sides. Its register entry carries a remote Casino licence from 1 November 2014 next to a remote Gambling Software licence from 25 September 2014, plus bingo, betting and gaming machine activities. Its investor page places the company on the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market as a FTSE 250 constituent with a High Holborn address.

Which studio made this slot: a check you can repeat

The fastest answer is usually inside the game. The Commission’s technical standard RTS 3 requires that “an explanation of the applicable rules must be easily available to the customer before they commit to gamble” (RTS 3A) and that information on the “return to player (RTP) percentage or the probability (likelihood) of winning events occurring” be easily accessible, for example “within individual games” (RTS 3C). That is why every game offered to customers in Great Britain has a rules or information panel. The standard says nothing about naming the studio; a panel that does so is adding a fact the rule did not ask for. Write the name down exactly as printed.

The second place is the operator’s lobby, which usually lets you filter games by provider. The label there is the operator’s, and it may sit at any of three levels: a group (Evolution), a brand (NetEnt) or a legal entity (Evolution Gaming Malta Limited). The index above shows that all three can describe the same catalogue.

The third place is the studio’s own site, and specifically its footer. Twelve of the fifteen studios here print at least one legal entity and one licence or account number there; three print none.

The fourth place is the register itself. Search on the legal name or the account number from the footer, not the brand, because “netent”, “red tiger” and “big time gaming” all return no results. Read the activities and their dates. If the entity holds Game Host (Casino), the games run on its servers; if it holds Casino, it may also contract with players directly under some other brand; if it holds Gambling Software alone, it supplies and someone else hosts.

What the check does not tell you is which return-to-player setting the operator selected for the copy you are playing, or how the game’s mechanics work; Reel & Story covers slot mechanics, RTP and volatility, and this page defers to it. Nor does it verify the operator that holds your account; Licence Lens sets out how to check an operator’s licence, register by register.

Sources: Gambling Commission: RTS 3 – Rules, game descriptions and the likelihood of winning · register searches for “netent”, “red tiger” and “big time gaming” listed below.

The biggest company depends on what is counted

The largest gambling companies by most measures are operators, and this index does not cover operators. Within the studios listed here, only the ones with a stock-market listing or a public acquirer publish figures, and those figures are not comparable with each other.

Evolution reported net revenues of EUR 1,030.8 million for January to June 2026, with about 22,900 employees and 870 operator customers. Light & Wonder reported consolidated revenue of $790 million for the quarter to March 2026 across land-based gaming, social gaming and iGaming together, with iGaming revenue up 18% year on year and a “6,500+ member team”. Playtech reported group revenue of €425.1 million for the first half of 2026. The IGT figure that exists is a price, not revenue: Apollo paid approximately $6.3 billion for the gaming and digital business together with Everi.

Different periods, different currencies, different mixes of online and land-based business. Pragmatic Play, which describes itself as owned by “a private group of investors led by Veridian (Gibraltar) Limited”, publishes no figures on the pages retrieved and cannot be placed at all. So the honest answer to “who is the biggest?” is: among online casino studios that publish accounts, Evolution reported the largest revenue for the most recent period recorded here; whether it is the biggest gambling company is a question about operators, and a different page.

Sources: Evolution: Interim report January–June 2026 · Light & Wonder: First quarter 2026 results · Playtech: Investor relations · Apollo: completion of the IGT and Everi acquisitions.

Certification wording, as the pages carry it

Four of the fifteen pages mention a testing laboratory at all. Pragmatic Play’s About page says its games are “Random Number Generator tested and certified” by Gaming Laboratories International, Quinel and Gaming Associates. Play’n GO shows BMM Testlabs and Gaming Laboratories International logos in a footer compliance strip. Relax Gaming shows an eCOGRA logo. Pragmatic Play’s homepage links to GameCheck. The remaining pages carry regulator logos, responsible-gambling links or licensing sentences, and no testing claim.

What a logo establishes is that the studio chose to display it. It does not say which game was tested, which version, against which standard, or when. The laboratories themselves publish certificates with those fields; the studio pages retrieved here do not reproduce them. Our note on what testing evidence establishes sets out the scope questions to ask of any certificate. For the index, the certification column records the wording and nothing more, and a blank cell means the page said nothing, not that no testing occurred.

What would change an entry

An ownership event changes the ownership cell only when a party to it publishes a dated statement: Evolution’s completion release for Big Time Gaming carries 30 June 2021; Apollo’s for IGT carries 1 July 2025. A register start date is a licence date, not an ownership date. Games Global’s 15 February 2022 tells you when its Commission licence began and nothing about what was bought or from whom.

A site redesign changes what a page states: netent.com is now a demo-play site and Microgaming’s declares itself a demonstration site. The entry follows the page as it is, not as it was.

Two things in the index are left deliberately unresolved. Evolution’s register entry printed a start date of 1 October 2026 for both of its activities on 18 September 2026, a date still in the future on the day it was read. The Commission’s licence-fee page separately states that new fees take effect on 1 October 2026. No page retrieved connects the two, so the index prints both and joins neither. And the relationship between Apricot Investments Limited and Games Global Operations Limited, two Douglas companies each associated with the Microgaming catalogue, is recorded as unstated because that is what the pages say.

Every row carries 18 September 2026. A later re-run with the same source list produces new rows; a claim that has not changed keeps its date. Our note on building a studio dossier describes the single-claim, single-source record that makes such a re-run possible.