As Global Gaming Expo(G2E) 2026 got underway on Monday, global suppler IGT took the opportunity to unveil a new brand identity that the company’s chief executive officer believes will transform its corporate identity.
Following the acquisition Of IGT and fintech company Everi by Apollo Global Management, the combined company dropped its traditional corporate look for a “bold and modern appearance.”
“We took a look at the history of IGT. It’s essentially 47, 48 years old,” CEO Hector Fernandez told CDC Gaming in an interview. “We’ve had four different logos.
“As we brought together two different businesses with different capabilities and different strengths, and quite frankly different weaknesses, we felt like we needed to reimagine what the company looked like,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez explained that this rebrand was a whole new story, a whole new novel, and the company was essentially writing chapter one.
Moving away from a typical corporate look, the company believes the new brand expresses a new identify around a commitment to integrated solutions across the casino floor, in-demand games, expertise in action, and customer success.
“From a customer standpoint, it was really important to us to think about appealing more to the player,” Fernandez said. “The IGT brand was very much like a corporate logo. A bit stuffy, maybe some would say arrogant. What we were trying to accomplish was modern, sleek, to give our customers the vision of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Fernandez told CDC Gaming that the new IGT is trying “to essentially be the provider of anything that a customer needs to operate their business.
“So if you think about the products and services, the combined entities that we bring to the table, we have the systems that can run the floor,” he said. “We’re launching a new product, Advantage X. We have a fintech business … a cashless environment. We also have a land-based business … and we have a digital business in our igaming.”
At the end of the day, Fernandez said, IGT doesn’t just want to sell product verticals, “we want to sell a holistic solution. We like to call it kind of casino as a service versus just individualized products. So it’s important for us to reinvigorate the company and position ourselves that way to customers.”
Using cash exclusively in a casino is maybe outdated and unnecessary, but the complete adoption of cashless wagering by land-based operators has been slow, as gamblers still prefer the feel of real money.
Fernandez explained that if you go back five or six G2E conventions , the big buzzword was cashless, with everyone believing that our almost cashless society would transfer over into the casino.
A couple of things changed to delay that transition.
“Number one, as folks try to develop cashless solutions, it looks nothing like you experience on Apple Pay or Google Pay, which essentially you pull it up, you tap … and there you go,” Fernandez explained. “You had to go through 30 steps to sign up for a mobile wallet and then it was really hard to get your money out. So you’ve introduced all this friction. By definition, cashless was supposed to be less friction than getting money in the ATM. We did the opposite. The industry as a whole did the opposite.”
Fernandez said the other challenge was gamblers don’t like being told what to do, so the transition to cashless will take time.
“We believe that the world over time will become more and more a cashless, but the adoption rate in this industry tends to be a lot lower than other industries,” he said. “We’re not trying to (take) a position on what the future would be. We’re trying to say we have holistic solutions that could solve any of your customer needs.”
Fernandez explained that IGT has also spent a lot of time and money building the tech stacks across all the company’s different products and solutions.
In January, IGT brought in former Activision and Disney executive Andy Hendrickson as chief product and technology officer (CPTO). Fernandez credited Hendrickson for being able to connect the tech stacks across IGT’s ecosystem to drive “the seamless solution.”
Perhaps his most important challenge is building IGT’s market share across the Asia-Pacific region, but especially in Macau and Australia where the company lags behind Light & Wonder and Aristocrat.
Fernandez, who spent time in the region as head of Aristocrat Gaming, told CDC Gaming he understands the effort that will be needed to build its brand and market share.
“We got our ass kicked and it’s embarrassing,” Fernandez said. “One of the things you learn about me is that I’m highly competitive and I hate to lose. Having said that, I also understand limitations where we don’t have a right to compete.”
If you look at the Asian gaming market, Fernandez said, you need three to four great games to offer in that market; you don’t need 10 to 20. To bolster IGT’s potential in Asia, Fernandez has recruited two of his former Aristocrat colleagues to join the company at the end of the month.
“Asia is a key market for us,” he said. “I truly believe the business hasn’t done a great job (there). You know, sub-10% share in that market. I think what you’ll see over the next two to three years is us being a lot more competitive.”
