Anastasios Ioannidis: “Pragmatic Play will continue to release nine new slots every month in 2025”

FIRST.com spoke with Anastasios Ioannidis, affiliate manager at ARRISE powering Pragmatic Play, about what the world-renowned games provider has in store for 2025.

Pragmatic Play provides casino games, covering all verticals, but specifically focusing on slots and their live casino arm Pragmatic Play Live. Popular slots you may be familiar with are: Sugar Rush 1000, Wolf Gold, Gates of Olympus and the famous Big Bass Bonanza fisherman series. Meanwhile, their well-known live game show titles consist of the innovative: Snakes and Ladders, Sweet Bonanza Candyland, Boom City and Mega Wheel.

What can we expect to see from Pragmatic Play in 2025?

Pragmatic Play started the year strongly with Aztec Smash, a cluster-pays slot with a smash multiplier feature which can multiply wins up to 1,000x. Following that, in January alone, there were Lunar New Year celebrations, deep-sea adventures, fortune-telling cats and much more.

In February, a legend returned in John Hunter and Galileo’s Secrets, and the famous fisherman took a break from exploring open waters in Big Bass Return to the Races. 

In April, the fisherman is set to join Pragmatic Play’s elite 1000 series of supercharged slots with the launch of Big Bass Bonanza 1000. This will be followed by the headline release of Gates of Olympus Super Scatter, which is going to be huge!

Pragmatic Play will continue to release around nine new slots every month, in addition to exciting products across other verticals. In live casino, Fortune Roulette launched at the end of January, bringing fortune multipliers in every round, multiplier wins on all inside bets, a thrilling slots bonus game and wins of up to 9,000x. 

What were Pragmatic Play’s most popular slots of 2024?

Popularity varies across player segments and markets. Broadly speaking, there were many top releases from Pragmatic Play last year, with Sugar Rush 1000 (March 2024) and Sweet Bonanza 1000 (June 2024) emerging as player favourites. Joining Gates of Olympus 1000 (December 2023) and Gates of Olympus Xmas 1000 (December 2024) on the list of most popular slots in 2024 were some incredible games: Angel vs Sinner, The Dog House – Dog or Alive, Candy Blitz Bombs, Wisdom of Athena 1000, The Dog House – Muttley Crew, an assortment of Big Bass titles, and many more.

Pragmatic Play supplies its products to operators in markets worldwide. Is there a specific approach to each?

Pragmatic Play’s products are available in all major regulated markets, languages, and currencies. There are certain requirements for each jurisdiction which require a different approach, but from a player perspective, each one of the global releases is designed to be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of country or culture.

Of course, Pragmatic Play also takes the opportunity to tailor experiences to specific markets. Oranje Jackpot is one such example in the Netherlands. This is a country-exclusive progressive jackpot, meaning only players who are located in the Netherlands can win it. The jackpot recently reached an amazing €1,000,000 (£825,695) and is available across six Dutch-themed games.

What’s the process of building a new slot?

Pragmatic Play draws from a vast pool of industry talent and experience. Its games are renowned for delivering exceptional gaming experiences, so the process starts by learning from and building on former releases to create new games that players love. Once a concept moves into development, teams of experts work on perfecting everything from the mathematics to the visuals. Then the game undergoes millions of rounds of internal testing before it is independently checked and certified externally. 

What is Pragmatic Play’s main goal for 2025?

To be everyone’s favourite supplier. In 2025, that means building more great slots that deliver exciting and rewarding gameplay, adding new twists to classic live casino titles, launching more unique game shows and delivering the very best entertainment experiences across all product verticals.