Golden Catch

About Golden Catch

On Monday, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced that Ruth Evans has succeeded Charles Counsell to take on the full time role of Gambling Commission chair.

Counsell took the helm in February 2025 following Marcus Boyle’s departure in January last year.

Evans, who chairs Stop Scams UK, an initiative she founded in 2019 to unite banks, technology companies and telecom providers to combat payment fraud, will assume the position on 30 September, commencing a five-year term.

About Golden Catch

“The agreement paves the way for CME Group to list weekly, monthly and quarterly cash-settled futures contracts, pending regulatory review, based on the CME FSPI MLB benchmarks,” according to a statement issued by FutureSports.

Launch dates for the MLB team futures contracts weren’t revealed, but spring training for the 2027 season commences on Friday, Feb. 19, according to the league schedule.

The initial batch of FSPIs launched with NHL performance gauges, triggering a wave of filings from exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuers seeking to launch futures-based funds for each professional hockey team. One issuer even filed plans for leveraged ETFs tied to the NHL indexes.

About Golden Catch

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.