Hawkplay Game Providers — Every Studio Covered Here
On game providers, this section runs to 5 pages.
- Hawkplay CQ9 Gaming Games
- As a game studio, CQ9 Gaming is not an operator.
- Hawkplay JDB Gaming Games
- A game studio, not an operator, is what JDB Gaming is.
- Hawkplay JILI Games
- JILI's role is a game studio's, not an operator's.
- Hawkplay PG Soft Games
- As a game studio, PG Soft is not an operator.
- Hawkplay Pragmatic Play Games
- Pragmatic Play stays on the studio side of the industry, not the operator side.
Because a game studio and a casino operate as different companies with different regulators, confusing them is the most common mistake made in this corner of the subject. These pages look at the studios behind titles in Philippine-facing lobbies: their identity, what they’re licensed for, and whether a checkable return-to-player figure is published. There are 5 pages below.
Everything in this section
| Studio | Publishes RTP | Specialisms | Licence position |
|---|---|---|---|
| JILI | No | slots, fishing games | PAGCOR (Electronic Gaming Licensing Department) |
| PG Soft | Yes | slots | Malta Gaming Authority |
| JDB Gaming | No | fish shooting games, slots | PAGCOR (Electronic Gaming Licensing Department) |
| CQ9 Gaming | No | slots, fishing games | PAGCOR (Electronic Gaming Licensing Department) |
| Pragmatic Play | Yes | slots, live casino | Malta Gaming Authority |
These 5 pages each take on a single entry instead of several at once. Wherever “not published” appears in a field above, the entry’s page clarifies who should have published it.
Each entry in a paragraph
A quick read on every entry, enough to pick the right page.
JILI
No headquarters is named, nor is a founding year published. Its lineup spans slots, fishing games, table and card games, and bingo.
The page’s first record names PAGCOR (Electronic Gaming Licensing Department). On PAGCOR EGLD’s approved electronic games list, JILI titles show up.
It publishes no RTP. No figure is quoted here for its titles, and elsewhere the figures are third-party estimates that disagree with each other.
PG Soft
Founded 2015, based in Valletta, Malta. Builds slots.
Its page opens with Malta Gaming Authority as the first record. The licence MGA/B2B/435/2017 belongs to Pocket Games Software Limited, registered as C 76195.
The studio publishes RTP, so any figure attached to one of its titles has a clear source. Although PG Soft includes RTP within its game data, that figure never displays on the page visitors see, leaving a blank dash where the field should be, while the number itself travels in the data sent with the page.
JDB Gaming
No headquarters is named, nor is a founding year published. Builds fish shooting games, slots.
The page’s first record names PAGCOR (Electronic Gaming Licensing Department). On PAGCOR’s own site, there’s a list approving game content.
It publishes no RTP. No figure is quoted here for its titles, and elsewhere the figures are third-party estimates that disagree with each other.
CQ9 Gaming
No headquarters is named, nor is a founding year published. It builds slots, fishing games, table games, and arcade games.
The page’s first record names PAGCOR (Electronic Gaming Licensing Department). On PAGCOR’s own site, there’s a list approving game content.
It publishes no RTP. No figure is quoted here for its titles, and elsewhere the figures are third-party estimates that disagree with each other.
Pragmatic Play
Founded 2015, based in Gibraltar. Slots, live casino, bingo, crash games and virtual sports make up its builds.
Its page opens with Malta Gaming Authority as the first record. Pragmatic Solutions MT Limited is named as the licensee for MGA/B2B/619/2018.
The studio publishes RTP, so any figure attached to one of its titles has a clear source. A single RTP per title is what Pragmatic shows on its own game pages, and it’s the top figure in a set.
The thing most often got wrong here
Here, the most important distinction is between a PAGCOR operator licence and a PAGCOR EGLD listing. A studio’s game content gets an EGLD listing once PAGCOR approves it for use by operators it licenses. It is unrelated to any licence held by the studio, and it tells you nothing about a casino carrying those games.
Below, four of the seven studios have only that much. This is stated plainly on each of their pages, because “PAGCOR listed” and “PAGCOR licensed” differ by a single word but worlds apart in meaning — and readers usually hope to have found the second.
Confirm game provider details from within the game itself
There is nothing here to just take on trust. A public register backs every licence mentioned on these pages, and each one is open to check:
- On the MGA authorisation portal, search the company name rather than the brand name to check a Malta licence. The licensee tends to be a subsidiary under a different name — Pragmatic Play’s Malta licence belongs to Pragmatic Solutions MT Limited, not to anything called Pragmatic Play.
- Use the account number to search the Gambling Commission public register for a UK licence. An active licence records its activities and their start dates, and it also carries any regulatory settlement made against the holder.
- The studio’s approved-games PDF on pagcor.ph is where to find a PAGCOR EGLD listing. Read this as approval of game content for licensed operators. If the studio’s licence is not mentioned in the document, then it does not hold one.
- Go to the studio’s own page for the specific title to see an RTP figure. If a figure isn’t published, no comparison site can invent it, and two comparison sites disagreeing counts as the finding.
Finding game providers at Hawkplay
- Sign in at Hawkplay and open the game lobby.
- Use the studio filter in the lobby, or search for a title by name.
- The stake range and paytable can be read on a game’s info screen before you start playing.
- Decide on a session budget first, then start any new studio at a low stake.
FAQ
Do any of these studios publish an RTP figure?
PG Soft, Pragmatic Play. No RTP is quoted here for the rest, rather than taking one from a comparison site.
Does a studio licence protect a player?
Not directly. A studio licence is granted to the company behind the games. The path for a player's recourse leads to the operator's regulator, a licence held by an entirely different company.
Does Hawkplay carry all of these studios?
Open Games in the Hawkplay lobby: each game tile names its studio, so you can see which ones are live for you. The description of each studio on these pages comes from its own published record.
In what way does a PAGCOR licence differ from a PAGCOR EGLD listing?
EGLD listing amounts to approval of a studio's game content for operators that PAGCOR licenses. It is the operator that holds a PAGCOR licence, authorising it to run a casino. Four of the studios listed here have the first, but the second is absent from all of them.
What explains the missing founding year or headquarters for some studios here?
Because they do not publish one. On their own sites, JILI, JDB Gaming and CQ9 Gaming disclose neither one. On affiliate listicles, figures for both keep circulating with no primary source, and none of them is repeated here.
Does GLI or BMM certification prove a game is fair?
It signals that a standard was applied when an independent test laboratory examined the random number generator and the paytable. It has real significance, differs from a licence, and neither one implies the operator offers the game.