Gun Slinger

How to play Gun Slinger

A fraudulent ad directing consumers to an unlicensed offshore operator highlights the exact issue Alberta sought to address by adopting an Ontario-style regulated iGaming model.

Dale Nally, Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction, has repeatedly emphasized that the primary objective of launching the province’s regulated market on July 13 was to offer consumers safe alternatives to illicit offshore sites operating out of jurisdictions like Malta and Curaçao.

“Standing still was not the responsible choice,” Nally said when the market launched. “Albertans were already gambling. What we’re putting in place is a regulated market that will put player safety and player responsibility first.”

How to play Gun Slinger

“Operators failing compliance checks is never a good look,” he says. Campaigners often claim that financial sanctions are priced in and that the Commission should revoke more licences, although Waugh does not believe operators view settlements merely as a cost of doing business.

Nor are regulatory breaches unique to gambling. Waugh notes that Tesco was fined more than £8 million for food hygiene failings in 2021, without parliamentarians demanding that it should be prevented from selling cornflakes.

“There are valid arguments to be made in relation to raising the barriers to licensing, but this may come at a cost of diminishing competition and entrepreneurship,” he says.

How to play Gun Slinger

Harrison Barrett, VP of business development, spoke to the iGB team at iGB L!VE 2026 to discuss the evolution of Soft2Bet’s MEGA platform, which started out as a purely gamification layer but has become “much more compelling than simply leaderboards, missions and point-based rewards”.

As Barrett puts it, MEGA is “ultimately a retention tool that helps our partners move away from heavy bonus and costs”.

With ice hockey and UFC-themed initiatives driving engagement in North America and a 45% lifetime value increase seen with the launch of MEGA Shoot, a player-versus-player simulation penalty shootout game initiative which launched during the World Cup, it is an exciting time for the Malta-based platform provider.