From bold cabinet designs to breakthrough software and games, leading game technology executives at IGA 2025 shared what’s driving innovation and generating the most excitement on tribal casino floors. Here is what they had to say…
Nikki Davis, Director of Marketing Communications
AGS
IGA was a great show for us. At G2E last year, we launched several new products – most notably, our Spectra SL75+ jumbo cabinet and the premium Spectra SL49+. At IGA, we showcased them again, and highlighted the diversity of our slot portfolio, with a wide range of form factors and game styles designed to engage every type of player.
On the tables side, we featured our award-winning progressives, including Bonus Spin Xtreme for poker rooms, which recently kicked off and has been making waves across the country. Overall, we were thrilled to be at IGA to support and connect with our tribal and commercial customers from the West Coast and across the U.S.
Every single game designer has put so much thought and energy into the games they create, and I get to see a lot of that, speak with many of them, and understand what makes each game so exciting for them. It’s so hard for me to pick a favorite game because every designer works incredibly hard, always trying to create the best experience for our customers and players.
Our studios – we have seven across the U.S. and Australia – are creating innovative games across all our different form factors. I’ll use Revel, our mechanical stepper, as an example. Our team has been developing creative ways to take traditional mechanics, like stepper mechanics, and add some flare that you’d typically see in video slots. It’s a great example of how our team continues to innovate across game types while staying true to what traditional players enjoy as well.
On the video side of things, we have a great variety. Some games are unique, innovative, and different – and others focus on what’s popular right now. Our R&D team does a great job of getting out there and being players themselves. That’s such a key part of their research – playing games, loving games, and developing them for all different types of players. It’s more about how many different types of players you can reach than just focusing on one, and I think they do a fabulous job at that. Our hardware team as well has been instrumental in creating a variety of diverse form factors for operators to choose from.
Sean Evans, Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Product Strategy
Ainsworth
What we’ve really been excited about this year is our brand extensions. We had good support last year with our Triple Troves. Now you’re seeing Triple Troves Family Fortunes come out with a wheel, and then the introduction of our first-ever premium product package, which is Neon’s Bonus Blast.
Now that we’ve moved to the Unity development engine, it’s a lot easier to take our games from Class II to Class III much quicker. What you’ll see from us now is the joining together of the two product lines. There’s really not much difference between Class II and Class III.
My favorite game that we have is a concept game, which is called Dragon Legacy. It’ll be out in about Q3, and features a scratch-and-win symbol. I’m really looking forward to that game coming out.
Craig Toner, CEO
Aristocrat Gaming
Our focus is on continued growth. We have the best people making great content that continues to win awards, and our focus is ‘how do we continue to grow and leverage that, and become an even greater partner to our customers?’
Tribal gaming is an incredibly important part of our business, especially in the gaming business unit. We have what we call ‘crown jewels,’ and Oklahoma and tribal gaming, more broadly in California and other states, are key crown jewels for us. It’s just so important and it’s something that we have a huge focus on.
On the games front, I’m especially excited about the new Mr. Money Bags and the new Ruby. They are starting to cross over from old-school mechanical reels into the video world. It’s the classic VGT Class II content on video, and the customers and players are reacting really positively to it. We think we’re onto a winner with that.
We continue to maintain industry-leading investment into content development. We’ve committed to the market that we will maintain at that level, so we continue to have a long, long runway. And then our focus is to take our land-based content that we know performs and convert that into online gaming as well. We know we have a massive back catalog there that we can bring to the online world and help the customers that are starting to move into that space.
We’re also working through what we call ‘mobile on premise’ and are looking to go live with some of the tribes on that in the very near future. It’s a nice pathway in.
Mike Sands, SVP of Sales, North America & Latin America
Aruze Gaming Global
This year, we’re really excited about the commercial launch of our new Musso Summit cabinet, which we briefly showed at G2E last year. Now, that cabinet is coming to fruition. It’s out on beta test in a property in California right now, and we’ll do performance testing within a full-scale launch later in June of this year. The feedback has been great from our customers.
With regard to games, we’ve had significant success with Triple Treasure Pot, which is consistently on the Eilers list. At IGA, we showcased the new Triple Treasure Pot – featuring two different themes within the same family, so a derivative of the original that’s been so successful – along with dedicated content for the Summit.
Russell Witt, Chief Business Development Officer
Eclipse Gaming
We’re focused on scalability, which is a big priority for us. We’re making significant changes to our development structure, including collaborating with third-party studios, and exploring integration opportunities with other products and those looking to enter the Class II space. Our partnership with Interblock is another key piece, bringing Class II electronic games to market. Overall, our focus is on growth and scalability – strengthening our infrastructure, building up our teams and expanding third-party partnerships.
We have a legacy hardware platform that we’ve freshened up with a new iDeck. We also have a whole new series of games – getting back to our Class II roots – where we build a primary game and a clone, while also working to develop game families with shared feature sets. We showcased the Link Blast series at IGA, which includes Mighty Tiki and Ra’s Legacy, as well as Adventures on the High Seas, which includes Rose’s Revenge and Blackwater’s Bounty. Each offers unique features that help diversify our portfolio. We also displayed a brand-new cabinet, the Callisto, along with new games for it developed by third-party studio Bold Bet Gaming in collaboration with us, which we’re really excited about. We’ve also partnered with The Fi Company on sign packages and display options for our customers. At IGA, we showcased what we’re building and shared our story with customers who saw the vision and are getting excited. It was a great show for us.
Finally, the Class II ETG partnership between Eclipse and Interblock is really exciting. Interblock is the largest ETG manufacturer out there – that’s what they do. Bringing ETG options into Class II gives tribes that didn’t previously have access to these products an entirely new market to tap into, and I feel like we’re really creating weapons of sovereignty for tribes.
David Lucchese, EVP Sales and Marketing
Everi
We love being at IGA and it’s great to be back in San Diego. This is a year where we were able to refresh our games product strategy and expose that to our partners, as well as continue the ongoing journey with our Digital Neighborhood and all of our cash access solutions and RegTech solutions. It was a great reception from the customers, and we’ve had lots of follow-up and engagement afterwards.
I have two favorite games right now – Fire Lion, which is just on the boards for releasing, as well as Wasabi Lock. The sales team is excited and the feedback from customers at IGA was very good, so we’re very optimistic.
Phil O’Shaughnessy, VP Global Communications, Events & Sustainability
IGT
It was fantastic to be back in San Diego for IGA. It was a great turnout, and of course, there was the worldwide launch of IGT’s Rise55 cabinet. What I really enjoyed was that we launched it with Magic Treasures Gold in the Class III space – continuing our strong track record with multi-level progressives – while simultaneously respecting our valued customers in the Class II market with a fun launch of Stinkin’ Rich Tail Wins on the Rise55 cabinet.
With Class II and Class III, it’s very important to align the launch of a compelling new piece of hardware like the Rise55, because ultimately, then you’re able to address all the demand that presents itself at IGA, and this cabinet is just so visually spectacular. It’s actually capable of up to 8K resolution, and we had a phenomenal response. IGA Chairman Ernie Stevens was there for the unveiling, and there was a steady flow of traffic to the IGT booth throughout the show.
Stephanie Lau, VP, Sales Enablement
Konami Gaming
One of our premier launches at IGA was Money in the Bank. It was a game we featured up front in the booth and is a for-sale title. It is unique in the fact that it includes mechanics we haven’t really seen in the market. In a typical hold-and-spin game, there are different ways to boost the prizes. In this case, we have a bank that can ‘shake or break’ and upgrade the prizes – so it is a very different approach.
Indian gaming means a lot to us. Our customers are not just customers – they’re our friends. They’re basically like family to us and have treated us incredibly well. They take chances on games that aren’t yet proven, and they truly work with us as partners. We love working with everyone in Indian gaming.
Favorite game? We recently launched What the Duck at Peppermill Resort Spa Casino. It was a big event – we loved it. We had a lot of influencers there who played it, and it’s doing really well. We’re really excited about it.
Fred Nunez, Senior Director, Product Management
Light & Wonder
We’re excited about the breadth of our catalog – from core stepper for-sale to our premium content, we have it covered across the board, even in the WAP space, which we’re starting to grow now.
Our game Huff N’ Even More Puff Grand really tells the story of the growth of the Huff N’ Puff brand as a whole. Originally, the game had one wheel, then we went to two, and now we’ve added a third – an Ultra Wheel. We’ve gone through and added that next layer, including a palace symbol instead of the mansion symbol, again showing additional progression within the game. We’ve also added new elements that showcase bigger wins and greater potential. It’s all about taking the player on that journey. This game is available on the Mural, Cosmic, and Horizon cabinets.
Huff N’ More Puff We’ve Had Enough is a great game because it tells a different story, in a different way, with a different adventure. From the base game, it has many of the key elements you’d expect from a standard Huff N’ Puff title. But what we’ve done is add these locking frames that help you progress if you trigger the bonus round in the base game. So, you’re always collecting things that come in and out, creating excitement throughout the base game. We’ve incorporated an Ultimate Fire Link-style mechanic, and on top of that, you can unlock the mansion bonus, which gives you the full reel array with those big wins. So even as you’re collecting, you’re still building toward rewards you may or may not unlock up top. You really get to see the potential while still enjoying the base game.
Kathleen McLaughlin, VP Marketing and Communications, North America
Novomatic Americas
We’re really excited about the fact that we’ve premiered our Ultra Boost™ 3 Treasures series, and we’ve had some great response to that. The hottest games in the market are the ‘pots’ games, and this is our take on that pots frenzy concept. Another product we’re really excited about is the premiere of our 2×2 Piggy Prizes wall, which is a cash-on-reel-style game, which is also very popular right now. We’ve had a tremendous response and have a strong roadmap for that product line. We installed it at FireKeepers Casino in Michigan recently as our first install, and the response has been outstanding.
Space Booster is a fantastic example of a five-pot game that’s positioned and created differently. It doesn’t feel like a traditional pots game, but as players engage with it, they recognize that it rewards them like a pots game. It has a really great-looking package and is an exciting product line for us. We’ve received a lot of great response to that.
Then, of course, we have our Big games and our Cash Flood and other kinds of products on the V.I.P. X Dream and V.I.P. X Royal 1.85 cabinets, which have been incredibly popular as you could see at IGA, because people were sitting in them and playing them throughout the show. We’ve just launched the new Novo Unity Pro, our table game system that we’re working to bring into tribal casinos in Oklahoma. We also have the NBS system, which is drawing interest from those looking for casino systems. It’s a biometric system with widespread use and popularity in Europe, and we’ve seen strong interest from smaller organizations that want a more compact, configurable, and scalable solution. That’s a great one for us.
Richar Fitoussi, President
Reveal Tech
At IGA, we showcased the second generation of our Reveal Roulette game. This generation is even better because it allows for more spins per hour, which benefits casinos. It is currently approved and available throughout California, and is featured at about 15 casinos now, including Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, Valley View Casino & Hotel, Graton Resort & Casino, Chukchansi Gold Resort & Casino, Soboba Casino, Agua Caliente Casinos, Harrah’s Resort Southern California, and others.
We also showed a new game called La Pair’e Poker. It features three different hands and is very simple for the players to enjoy. It’s already installed at casino floors in France, is now approved for Nevada, and will eventually be coming to California.
Derik Mooberry, CEO
Zitro USA
IGA 2025 was the launch in Indian Country for our new Concept cabinet, which has already seen tremendous success globally. To now bring that success to the tribes here in the U.S. and highlight it has been amazing. The showcase title on the cabinet is Legendary Sword. If you look at the Eilers reports, it’s currently the number one game in all of Latin America. The performance speaks for itself, and we’re proud to have already gone live with four marquee tribal customers. That really shows it’s real and it’s ready – the games are now live at Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Minnesota, Cocopah Casino in Arizona, and Soboba Casino Resort and Pechanga Casino Resort in Southern California. You’ll see it in many more places over the next couple of months as we’ve had record sales volume. The anticipation and excitement from customers who want this cabinet and to bring it to their floors has far exceeded our expectations. We hope the performance continues to live up to the high standard that has already been set on the international front.
