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Bet365 noted the impact of the UK government’s near doubling of the remote gaming duty, which increased from 21% to 40% on 1 April this year.
Additionally, a new remote betting duty is set to come in from April 2027, which will raise the effective tax rate on all sports betting products except horse racing from 15% to 25%.
Several other operators have responded to the UK tax hikes by announcing shop closures.
About Star Joker
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.
About Star Joker
When I joined CalvinAyre.com in August of 2009, there was an enormous gap in the industry for an honest, transparent news site with regular, fresh video content. Over time, we grew from a tiny team of a handful of people to dozens, providing the industry with the juiciest breaking news and cutting-edge video coverage.
Today we pass on the torch to our event organizing and media production friends who have more recently developed outstanding news coverage and video teams dedicated to the gaming space, hopefully who I’ll be seeing at CoinGeek Conferences in the future.
Reflecting on my fateful words at EiG back in 2013, it was the entrepreneurial energy, the innovation and the excitement surrounding Bitcoin that originally drew me to it. Back then, the obsession about Bitcoin was not related to price, it was about the disruptive technology and this is what meant something to me. While a great deal has changed in Bitcoin between 2013 and now, the energy, innovation and excitement are all still there and I am looking forward to the next chapter of my career with Calvin Ayre and the Ayre Media team.
