Mark Maislish
Mark Maislish joined Pragmatic Play as the supplier’s chief revenue officer in November 2024, bringing years of experience in the finance sector at giants such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Speaking at January’s ICE conference in Barcelona, Maislish shared Pragmatic Play’s vision at a time of global growth, further expansion into regulated markets and a rapidly accelerating live casino business.
GGB: Which markets are particularly driving revenue?
Mark Maislish: If we look at December last year, we saw 40 percent of our top 100 operators achieve all-time highs. So the growth we’re seeing across the industry is a pretty broad spread. I think there’s a bit more of a buzz about Latin America being a growth region. We’re seeing that as well. But I would say we operate globally and what we’re seeing has been pretty broad across our operators.
What other potential expansion opportunities is Pragmatic Play looking at?
I think this year is going to be exciting from a new market perspective. We’re hoping that Alberta will get through the final hurdles. It would be a new market for us, (the) same potentially for New Zealand later in the year. There are more markets opening up, which of course we’re focused on. On where we’re seeing existing growth, I could point out Argentina, where player numbers have really picked up in particular.
How important is innovation for providers such as Pragmatic Play?
It’s really important for us to continue to innovate, and we’re continuing to see that in the industry. Even if I just look at some of our existing franchises—Gates of Olympus, for example—it’s still a top game, it’s still fantastic. But we need to continuously innovate that franchise. If you look at December last year, our top game globally was Gates of Olympus Super Scatter, while our mid-December release, Fortune of Olympus, also performed brilliantly. That’s a continuation of additional features and modification on the original game.
This also applies to both our new releases, such as the upcoming Jelly Express, and us bringing popular slot IPs to our live casino portfolio—which you’ll see soon with Gates of Olympus Roulette. If you’re not innovating, it’s hard to stay ahead of the game.
Of the revenue split between slots, live casino and other verticals, where do you see the strongest upside?
The slots business is the bedrock of our group; I think everybody is aware of that. So the focus on maintaining that leadership and the innovation in that vertical is really important for us.
Live casino is a key strategic growth area, and while our footprint today is measured, we see substantial long-term potential globally. We’re seeing tremendous momentum in the live casino product—we launched 150 tables last year, and we’re going to launch hopefully more than double that number this year. The biggest area of growth is our live casino product, and what we’re doing is trying to support that with investment.
By the next ICE, what do you hope to have achieved? And how does Pragmatic Play get to that point?
We want to be able to deliver the tables that we plan to this year. We want there to be continued momentum in our live casino product. We hope to announce some more studios. And then on the slots side, the product team has done a really good job of building on existing franchises with new features that are exciting for players. These are the two most important areas for us.
