When Galaxy Gaming’s Director of iGaming Jason McCulloch joined the company in 2021, the Las Vegas-based developer and distributor of land-based and online table games had been licensing its IP on the digital side since 2010. Currently, Galaxy has 25 development partners globally, in the Live Dealer and RNG. Galaxy’s partnerships are with some of the largest iGaming providers; Evolution, Playtech, Pragmatic, Game Global, Entain, Bet365, Flutter to name a few.
But the recent emergence of Galaxy Gaming Digital shows the company is now turning to the development of some of their own games for online markets.
“We as a company determined that was going to be the next evolution. To further show Galaxy’s deeper library of content, rather than the perception of Galaxy just offering side bets,” McCulloch says. “When we made that decision, it was pretty exciting for me because I was tasked with going out and making it happen.”
The new project meshes with McCulloch’s background. He previously worked for another gaming company as a senior product performance analyst and was familiar with bringing new games to market in multiple regions. His peers at Galaxy Gaming were similarly poised and ready to accept this new challenge.
“It’s been an exciting experience for a lot of people in this office who have a background in development process, including marketing material and creative assets for digital,” McCulloch says. “Compliance is also now much more familiar with the digital side of the business. Which has allowed for a smoother release schedule and coordination between digital and land-based approvals.”
Earlier this year, Galaxy Gaming worked with Bragg Gaming to develop 21+3 Progressive Blackjack. The game earned the Top Performing New Online Table Game award at the Fifth Annual EKG Slot Awards at Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
“The Bragg games were our first real deep dive into full development cycle, with our in-house team working with all of their teams,” McCulloch says. “We provided Bragg with all the assets, the user interface recommendations, and all the other types of processes you normally have to do (as a game creator).”
When McCulloch started at Galaxy Gaming, there was no real crossover between the company’s land-based and digital games. He also noticed that there were no progressives, the company’s strength on the land-based side, for digital offerings.
“On the digital side there were no progressives in table games, so that’s really been our focus,” he says. “That’s Galaxy’s brand and that’s what we’re trying to bring across to the digital side.”
The first attempt at using progressives for digital games – the venture with Bragg Gaming that yielded 21+3 Progressive Blackjack – set the tone for what Galaxy will work on going forward.
“All the new games we’re developing in-house have progressives,” McCulloch says. “It’s been asked for multiple times by multiple operators (in the U.S. and other countries).”
These new Galaxy-built titles include Rising Phoenix Baccarat, Roulette Up Progressive, and Split To Double Blackjack, which should all be available globally in the coming months, through the company’s partnership with Oddsworks.
A lot of the features of Galaxy’s new land-based system are also going to be incorporated into its new digital games. These include Dynamic Progressives, Mystery Progressives and Must Hit By. These features have been very successful in slots and Galaxy is excited to bring them to table games.
McCulloch acknowledges that igaming doesn’t have the penetration in the U.S. compared to online sports betting. But Galaxy is determined to forge ahead with game development, especially since the majority of its markets are overseas.
“A lot of what we’re focusing on in the digital side is in more mature and faster growing markets such as Asia, South America and Latin America,” he says. “More U.S. states will come online at some point in the future, but it’s not our immediate focus. We’re not building these games for the U.S. market specifically; we’re building these games globally. That’s why we’re launching a baccarat game for Asia. Roulette, we’ve been asked many times for in South America. And blackjack is our number one game globally. Galaxy is a global company in land-based and digital, so we are not limiting ourselves to one market.”
