At IGA 2026, the conversation centered on bold ideas – eye-catching cabinet designs, breakthrough software, and games engineered to entertain. We spoke with game technology leaders to find out what new products they have for the game floor this year and going forward. Here is what they had to say…
Nikki Davis, VP of Marketing
AGS
IGA 2026 was a powerful opportunity to showcase the full momentum of AGS across every part of our business. From our growing portfolio of high-performing slot content and the continued expansion of our Flex program, where nearly every title on the floor is already available in Class III and coming soon to Class II, to the debut of AGS FlexBet, the industry’s first selectable multi-denom sensor for table progressives with the ability to trigger up to two side bets simultaneously, the booth reflected the versatility and innovation across our portfolio. We were also excited to have our interactive team on-site, beginning important conversations around Class II real-money gaming as we prepare to bring AGS content online in the near future.
Sean Evans, VP of Product Strategy, Marketing& Sales
Ainsworth Game Technology
At IGA this year, we launched our new dual-screen Raptor platform for the North American market. It’s the first time we’ve been able to couple our Class II and Class III releases within one month of each other – so our San Fa Fortune brand extension from our first San Fa game on the original Raptor 49. We are excited to be rolling this out and supporting it for our tribal partners.
Stephen Vann, Director Product Management, Class II
Aristocrat Gaming
We’re excited about the Crown Bartop. We’re launching it with a multi-game pack featuring Hunt and Aztec, and then following up with some differentiator titles in the summer. There’s a lot of new product between the Crown Bartop and the Baron Portrait, where we’re leading with Ruby and Money Bags. And with the Marquis cabinet, we’re launching Mr. & Mrs. Money Bags as well – expanding those powerful Class II VGT brands and building on the success we’ve seen out there.
Hector Fernandez, CEO
IGT
Can you tell us about your new role with IGT and how that came about?
As I was trying to make the decision to lead IGT as CEO, there were certain factors that led me down this path. I saw the power of combining a premium land-based organization with a FinTech organization and solving end-to-end customer problems. You could then go to an operator and say, ‘We can get you cash on the floor. We can run the system. We can also give you great land-based content.’
So, it was interesting for me when the IGT and Everi deal was first announced – minus Apollo – that they were coming together. A few months after the Apollo deal was announced, they reached out and asked if I would be interested. Initially, I said no because I was perfectly happy where I was and we had done a lot of great things. But as they talked about strategy, they said they wanted to build something for the next 10 years, which was important to me.
I told them, ‘if you don’t want to build culture, then I’m not your person,’ because I truly believe that with anything you do in life, you should leave a strong legacy of people. This is an investment business. Obviously, there are synergies you have to drive out of the business, but the need to invest is important. We spent a lot of time discussing the importance of tribal customers. It’s about relationships and trust. If you do what you say you’re going to do, you’re going to have a very successful career with tribal operators. I talked a lot about this with Apollo, and I got the reassurance that they were fully committed.
One of the things you’ll see us do is invest back into the Class II portfolio. If you remember, IGT sold their routes, both Class III and Class II in Oklahoma specifically, but Everi is still an independent player going direct to Oklahoma. One of the important things we did early on was attract Ryan North, an architect of many of the Class II innovations that have happened over the last five years, and he’s excited about this journey.
It takes a while to turn a business around. It takes a while to see the fruits of those investments. I’m a big believer in tribal gaming and we’re going to invest heavily in that. It was fun to be at my first tradeshow with IGT at ICE in Barcelona, but IGA 2026 was really my first tradeshow in the U.S., and it was so great to see all the tribal customers – I consider them friends – and talk about our vision. I told them, ‘It’s not going to happen overnight, but we have a strategy, we have a plan to execute against that strategy, and we’re going to be laser-focused on it.’
Because we’re private now, we can move at speed. I get to focus on all the cool parts of the job and less of the bureaucracy and governance. That has been very exciting so far.
In the several months I’ve been in the job, what we’ve been able to accomplish – repivoting the strategy, executing (as painful as it was) the restructuring, and driving focus in the organization – would have taken us two years if we were public.
Tashina Lazcano, Senior Director, Marketing & Communications
Konami Gaming
We were thrilled for the IGA debut of our new Solstice 49C. It is a top-performing cabinet that was voted the number one best core cabinet by operators out of G2E. To see it on the floor at IGA was incredibly exciting, especially with the great software content we have. All three of our debut games were ranked in the top 25 – Bomberman, Red Fortune Rail, and Dragon Firecracker. We were also showing more of our expanded library with some of our other top-performing themes, including one of our big highlights, Diggin’ Bros. That game features blast areas on the reel that creates an incredibly exciting hold-and-spin feature with a nested bonus within that hold-and-spin.
In addition to the Solstice 49C making its debut at the show, we also showcased Konami Online Interactive at IGA for the first time, which is the brand dedicated to our iGaming offering. Tribal partners who also have an online casino can tap into a great library of top-performing Konami hits through Konami Online Interactive, which exhibited in the Digital Play Summit area of the show.
And of course, we had our Synkros team at IGA highlighting the latest Synkros offering. We owe a lot of Synkros’ success to our tribal partners, because they hooked onto Synkros early on and gave us a chance to demonstrate the strength of the system. As a result, we’ve continued to spread among properties across the U.S., Australia, on cruise lines, and the Las Vegas Strip – but we really wouldn’t have the expansion we have today if it weren’t for our tribal customers. The industry continues to show its strength as we expand across Indian Country with this top-performing product, along with the expanded tools available through it, like the Konetic mobile app and Synkros Progressive Management.
Gerick Bermudez, Product Manager
Light & Wonder
There was a lot to be excited about at IGA 2026 – it was probably the most stacked lineup since I’ve been with the company, which is about four years now. LightWave Solar is a brand-new cabinet that we launched at IGA, with three game families: Hot Hot Flaming Pots, Hot Trio Fiesta Caliente, and Purrate’s Life. We also debuted some new games for LightWave gaming ops, including Huff N’ Puff Link and Ultimate Fire Link Blazing Dragon. Those are new brand extensions of homegrown brands, which are very key to us. We also have new brands, as I mentioned, including Hot Trio on our LightWave Solar, which came from a studio in Reno, Vivid Studios, led by Kelsy Foster. Other games include Purrate’s Life, also on the LightWave Solar, and Hooowlin’ Spinfire on the for-sale side on Cosmic. New brands were big for us at the show, and there was a lot of content overall. We’re super excited to have debuted all of it.
Kathleen McLaughlin, VP Marketing and Communications, North America
Novomatic Americas
At IGA 2026, we were so excited to launch our Vision Link series, specifically Ghost Party and Hot Pot. We also showcased our new Sapphire sign package, which we created and manufacture for Novomatic by Novomatic.
The new Diamond X Quattro 1.55J now features an immersive soundbar at the top, and this enhanced sound has made such a difference.
Our team did a phenomenal job with the Vision Link Ghost Party game, which was by far our hit of the show. We’ve received so much feedback on how Americanized and interesting this game is, and the excitement of so many jackpots and bonuses going off at the same time. It’s a five-pot game, which is big for us, and it is highly interactive, with a graphic look we haven’t had before. The math is incredibly player-friendly, and there are more coins, more jackpots, and more reels. The game features these little bonus eyeballs and other creative, Americanized touches we haven’t done before. At IGA, people couldn’t walk by without sitting down to figure out what it is and how to get the lucky eyeballs. We’re excited. It’s such a cool game.
We’ve also taken our successful Novo Unity Pro ETG system and made it available as a dedicated standalone game. Our V.I.P. X Dream, one of our cabinets, is beautiful and has an impactful presentation. Players can select any of the standard table games, and because it’s not linked to a full system, it’s much easier for operators to place around the casino. You can put them in banks against a wall or create dedicated areas. You can link them to a system if you’d like, but the option of running them as standalones is appealing to our customers. It’s a new product for us, and we’re excited about the response so far. From a table games perspective, it has everything – roulette, baccarat, blackjack, and sic bo. Blackjack is three-hand, so you can play three hands simultaneously, which is a player plus. And if you want to switch things up, you can jump over and play some of our latest and greatest slots like Ultra Boost 3 Treasures – all in one unit.
Sony Syamala, Chief Commercial Officer
Valicy Gaming
At IGA 2026, we were excited to feel that we belonged. That came with the product, the people, and the reception we received from customers. We have a new president, Chris Rowe, who just started – he’s a veteran in the industry, so people really know him. We’re assembling a great team, and that’s been part of the story we’ve been sharing with our customers.
At IGA, we launched a brand-new cabinet, the Teton LE – our latest edition. We also introduced linked progressives for the very first time, which we named VictoryLink. The idea is that it’s not specific to one game; it can link across all the other games in our library.
We were very excited about going live in Oklahoma right before IGA. We came to the show with tremendous performance numbers to share. On average, we are doing 1.6x coin-in to house average, and our best game is doing 2.4x, which is fantastic. For us, it comes down to assembling the right people. We have the best commercial product people and the best hardware people, and we’re assembling a great sales team. In Washington, we have our own warehouse – and we have warehouses in every state we operate in to make sure service is number one. We want to have people available to service our customers wherever we go.