Uri Poliavich Didn’t Just Build a Company — He Built the Playbook for Modern iGaming
There are two kinds of leaders in iGaming.
The first kind sells the dream: “We have the best platform.” “We have the biggest library.” “We have the ultimate user experience.” They speak in glossy phrases and vague superlatives, and you can’t really blame them — it’s a competitive space, and hype is part of the economy.
The second kind shows receipts.
Uri Poliavich belongs to the second group.
If you’ve spent any time around the iGaming sector, you’ve likely come across Soft2Bet — the technology company Poliavich founded in 2016, which has grown into a serious global player for operators in regulated markets.
But what makes his story worth reading isn’t “founder builds company.” Plenty of founders build companies. The real story is how he did it: a mix of disciplined execution, obsessive product thinking, and a very modern understanding of what the iGaming business has become.
Because iGaming today isn’t really a casino business. Not in the old sense.
It’s an attention business.
And Poliavich seems to understand something many people miss: when you compete for attention in 2026, you’re not competing against other sportsbooks. You’re competing against TikTok. Instagram. YouTube. Everything glowing on a screen.
If you want a quick place to start with his public profile, it’s here: https://uripoliavich.com/
The Background That Matters
Poliavich’s origin story isn’t the typical “dropped out of college, built an app, became a billionaire” mythology.
He’s described in multiple published profiles as being born in Ukraine in 1981, moving to Israel as a teenager, and later serving in the Israel Defense Forces before pursuing legal studies.
That legal foundation matters more than people realize.
iGaming is one of the most regulated environments in modern entertainment. It’s not tech in the “move fast and break things” sense. It’s tech in the “move fast without breaking laws across multiple jurisdictions” sense.
So when Soft2Bet becomes known for compliance-forward global operations, it’s not a coincidence. It’s culture.
Soft2Bet’s “Secret” Wasn’t a Flashy Idea — It Was Infrastructure
Soft2Bet didn’t build its reputation by being loud. It built it by being useful.
The company provides B2B iGaming solutions — the kind operators rely on when they want to launch and scale without rebuilding their tech stack every time they enter a new market.
And because Soft2Bet also operates in B2C, it isn’t designing in a lab. It’s learning in real-time, under the pressure of real players making real decisions.
That feedback loop is rare, and it’s a competitive edge.
Uri Poliavich, Soft2Bet, and the MEGA platform: Where Gamification Stops Being Cute and Starts Printing
Let’s talk about the product people associate with Poliavich most: MEGA — the Motivational Engineering Gaming Application.
MEGA is essentially Soft2Bet’s answer to a blunt industry problem: it’s expensive to acquire players, retention is difficult, and most platforms are still built like static websites with buttons.
MEGA flips that by treating the experience more like a modern game — with progression mechanics, interactive rewards, and long-term engagement loops.
In plain English: it gives players a reason to come back that isn’t just another bonus offer.
And here’s the part that separates the marketing claims from the real discussion: Soft2Bet publicly ties MEGA to hard performance lifts.
Reported outcomes associated with MEGA include:
- 4x increase in player screen time
- 65% increase in Net Gaming Revenue (NGR)
- 50% increase in deposit amount
- 45% increase in ARPU
Those aren’t cosmetic improvements. Those are “this changes the economics of a business” improvements.
The MEGA Flywheel (the part operators care about)
MEGA’s success makes sense when you think about how behavior actually works:
- Engagement goes up
- Screen time increases
- Returning users become more predictable
- Deposits become more frequent and larger
- Revenue rises without needing to scale ad spend at the same rate
That’s not just gamification.
That’s motivational engineering — which is exactly what Soft2Bet named it.
A Leader’s Philosophy: “What’s Next?” (A Useful Obsession)
Plenty of founders love to say they’re obsessed with the future.
Poliavich operationalizes it.
Soft2Bet has published materials framed around forward-looking growth strategy (“What’s Next?”), which lines up with his reputation as a leader who pushes continuous iteration rather than defending legacy processes.
That mindset matters because iGaming has a built-in trap: once something works, the industry rushes to copy it, and the space fills with clones.
So the only real moat is momentum — building faster than the market copies.
The Underreported Angle: Investing in the Next Wave
In 2024, Soft2Bet announced Soft2Bet Invest, a €50 million iGaming innovation fund designed to invest in projects pushing boundaries in areas like AI, analytics, and next-gen gaming experiences.
This move matters.
It tells you Poliavich isn’t just building a single company — he’s positioning Soft2Bet as a platform ecosystem that shapes what comes next.
That’s closer to a Silicon Valley play than a traditional iGaming play.
The Part That Humanizes It: Philanthropy and Education
This is where most founder profiles get cringe. They get overly shiny and stop sounding believable.
But the education angle shows up repeatedly in Poliavich’s public-facing narrative — a focus on helping young people access learning, cultural identity programs, and community development.
It’s also tied to one of the more memorable lines attributed to him:
“Most people think that business drives charity initiatives, but for me, charity drives business…”
Even if you take that statement with some healthy skepticism, it does reveal something: he frames leadership as responsibility, not just leverage.
What Uri Poliavich’s Story Really Suggests
The interesting thing about Uri Poliavich isn’t that he built Soft2Bet.
It’s that he built it in the direction the industry is inevitably moving:
- toward regulated global infrastructure,
- toward AI-driven personalization,
- toward gamified engagement loops,
- and toward companies that can prove performance, not just promise it.
That combination is why he’s become a recognizable figure in the sector — and why Soft2Bet is increasingly treated not as a vendor, but as a strategic partner.
In iGaming, “attention” is the product. Retention is the profit model. And tech isn’t the tool — it’s the battlefield.
Poliavich seems to have understood that early.
And then he built MEGA to win it.
