On 4 July 2024, GameArt announced a content deal with Universal Soft, a Lima company active since 2017. The goal: bringing its HTML5 slots to the platform's Latin American clients.
The press release names no game, no launch date and no number of titles. Peru, where Universal Soft is based, is the only country mentioned.
Universal Soft is first and foremost a live horse racing betting platform. In 2025, its founder Henry Tapia claimed a presence in 11 countries and more than 70 aggregated providers.
Universal Soft has been registered with Peru's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (MINCETUR) as a linked service provider since 23 February 2024. Its “Universal Soft Hípicas” platform was approved on 15 April 2025.
Universal Soft runs no licensed gaming site in Peru: it is not among the 93 operating authorisations in the public register checked on 27 October 2026.
Since February 2024, Law No. 31557 has required every game manufacturer to go through three steps: registration with MINCETUR, certification by an accredited lab and approval of each game.
As of 27 October 2026, GameArt appears neither among the 375 registered providers nor as a manufacturer in the register of game programs: its slots are not approved for Peru's regulated market.
In the previous seven months, GameArt had announced KTO Group, presented as the studio's largest client in Brazil, then Vibra Solutions, the platform arm of Argentina's Vibra Gaming.
After July 2024, GameArt's Latin American announcements target affiliate sites rather than platforms. Universal Soft never reappears.
Outside Peru, the deal changes nothing for players: real-money access to GameArt slots still depends on local licensing and on operators approved in each country.
A studio based in Valletta, a platform born in Lima, a continent to win over: the announcement of 4 July 2024 followed a well-worn script. GameArt presented Universal Soft as a new regional partner. Its job was to take the studio's HTML5 slots far from the European markets where GameArt built its name.
Read again in 2026, the release raises a question it could not answer at the time. What is a content deal worth in a country that has required, since February 2024, the approval of every game offered online? Peru now publishes the lists of providers, platforms and games it authorises. That makes it possible to check, on the record, what press releases merely announce.
This review cross-checks the trade press, Universal Soft's own statements and MINCETUR's public registers. The picture that emerges looks nothing like an online casino. And GameArt's foothold in Peru turns out to be much thinner than the announcement suggested.
What does GameArt's 4 July 2024 press release say?
On 4 July 2024, GameArt introduced Universal Soft as a young company launched in Peru in 2017. The release described it as dedicated to running and developing betting and gaming content, and as already well established in Latin America. According to the press release on the studio's website, the Peruvian company supports its clients from design to platform rollout, in their venues as well as on their betting sites. It was also getting ready to target Europe and Africa.
GameArt's part fits in one sentence: its slot portfolio joins Universal Soft's offering, in the hope of winning over Latin American players. Henry Tapia, CEO of Universal Soft, praises innovative games and says he likes their simplicity. Yauheni Charniuk, Account Manager at GameArt, promises experiences tailored to the tastes of players in the region.
Everything else is missing. No title is named, and neither is the number of games, a launch date, a country other than Peru or any financial term. Reading it, there is no way to tell which operators will get these games or under which licence they will run.
It also helps to understand what a content deal actually covers. On the B2B side of online gaming, the studio never meets the player. It connects its game server to the partner's platform, which then switches the titles on for the operators it equips, either as a white label or through aggregation. The player only sees a casino, never the chain that links the slot to the screen.
I have been reading announcements like this one since 2011, and the template rarely changes: two quotes that echo each other, a promise made to players, no timetable. Nothing unusual there: it is how the genre works. It simply forces you to look elsewhere for what the text leaves out.
Universal Soft: a horse racing platform born in Lima
Universal Soft is a Peruvian company founded and run by Henry Daniel Tapia. Its original product is a live horse racing betting platform, launched in August 2017. In an interview published by Revista Casino Perú on 22 July 2025, its founder explains that he built it because the racing solutions offered by third parties did not satisfy him.
From betting shops to white label
In May 2020, Universal Soft had more than 500 points of sale in Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela, according to SBC Americas. The pandemic closed those shops. The company then moved online and built an omnichannel model, selling its platform as a white label and aggregating games from other providers (more than 70, according to Henry Tapia).
The 2025 interview describes a claimed presence in 11 countries: Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Uruguay, Bolivia, Haiti, Mexico, Tunisia and Equatorial Guinea. The company also mentions a certification from the GLI lab and two SAGSE awards for the best live horse racing platform, in 2020 and 2021. It adds a relaunch in 2025 with gamification features, its first major overhaul in eight years.
Among the partners named in that interview are Pragmatic Play and Endorphina, there from the start, and SIS, presented as the main partner. GameArt is not mentioned. That silence proves nothing on its own, since an interview is not an inventory. Still, it suggests the 2024 deal is not one of the company's pillars.
Operator or platform provider?
Between 2020 and 2025, the trade press described Universal Soft in turn as a racing operator, a live racing specialist and an online casino operator. The table below lists these successive portraits.
Date
Source
Universal Soft described as
Countries named
26 May 2020
SBC Americas, deal with Golden Race
Horse and greyhound racing operator with more than 500 points of sale
Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela
8 July 2022
SoloAzar, interview with Henry Tapia
Peruvian company focused on live horse racing, with a white label aggregator on the side
Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela
11 December 2023
CasinoBeats, deal with 7777 gaming
Operator of six online casino brands
Uruguay, Chile, Mexico
4 July 2024
GameArt, deal announcement
Company running and developing betting and gaming content
Peru
15 April 2025
MINCETUR, platform register
Manufacturer of the approved “Universal Soft Hípicas” platform
Peru
22 July 2025
Revista Casino Perú, interview with Henry Tapia
Omnichannel racing platform, white label, aggregation of more than 70 providers
11 countries
The Peruvian register settles the question, at least for the home market. Universal Soft S.A.C. has been listed since 23 February 2024 in MINCETUR's register of linked service providers under number PSV0068. The entry covers game modes, sports betting platforms, player account management platforms and progressive systems.
Its “Universal Soft Hípicas” platform, version 1.1 and certified by GLI, was approved on 15 April 2025. The register of technology platforms describes it as a horse racing betting engine with an API that operators plug into their own player management system. Universal Soft, however, does not appear among the holders of an operating licence. In Peru, it sells tools to operators; it is not one of them.
GameArt already knew the road to Lima
GameArt did not discover Peru in 2024. On 15 and 16 June 2022, the studio exhibited at the Peru Gaming Show, on stand 41 at the Jockey Exhibition Center in Lima. Its Latin American distributor, Carlos Andrés Ramos, said there that GameArt was already working with the country's main online operators. Universal Soft also had a stand at the show. The two companies crossed paths, at least a few aisles apart, two years before teaming up.
Peru was even on the studio's horizon three months earlier. In March 2022, GameArt announced its arrival in Ecuador with VirtualSoft and named Peru among the next markets, alongside Chile, Paraguay, Costa Rica and Jamaica. In September 2023, the deal with Offside Gaming, a platform presented as one of the main players in Peru and Chile, explicitly targeted both countries.
Then the pace picked up, as if the studio were spreading its chips across several tables at once. In December 2023, KTO Group joined the list from Brazil. In March 2024, Vibra Solutions, the platform division of Argentina's Vibra Gaming group, received more than 150 slots from the studio. Universal Soft arrived in July as part of that run, with one big difference: its home country had just put a full legal framework in place.
Taken together, these deals reveal a method. Rather than negotiating casino by casino, GameArt mostly works through intermediaries able to distribute its game library to several operators at once. Until summer 2024, only KTO Group, an operator with its own platform, breaks the pattern among the studio's Latin American announcements. The reasoning is easy to follow: a single technical integration can open the door to dozens of casinos.
What Peruvian law requires from a game studio
Peru regulates remote gaming and sports betting through Law No. 31557, published on 13 August 2022 and amended by Law No. 31806 of 28 June 2023. Supreme Decree 005-2023-MINCETUR of 13 October 2023 completes the framework. The first registration requests came in during February 2024, and the ministry has published its registers online ever since.
This framework applies to foreign studios like any other. GameArt, a Malta-based game provider, has held a B2B licence from the Malta Gaming Authority since 6 February 2023. That licence opens no doors in Lima: Peru keeps its own registers, accredits its own labs and applies its own technical standards.
Three steps before the first spin
Since 13 February 2024, game manufacturers and platform manufacturers have followed the same path. MINCETUR's own FAQ breaks it down into three stages:
Registration: the manufacturer registers with the ministry as a linked service provider (“proveedor de servicios vinculados”).
Certification: a lab accredited by the ministry issues a certificate of compliance with Peruvian standards, which can cover several products at once.
Approval: the ministry authorises the game and enters it in its register of game programs, with its version, its lab and the resolution number.
The same FAQ states that only games approved in advance can be offered, whether on a computer or a mobile phone. A slot that has not cleared these three steps therefore has no place on a licensed Peruvian site, whatever intermediary distributes it.
Can a foreign certificate be used in Peru?
A certificate issued for another jurisdiction does not count as approval in Peru. The lab can use it as a starting point, but it must issue a new one under Peruvian technical standards. The games GameArt has had certified in Spain or the Netherlands are therefore worth nothing there without this new round of testing.
A 12% tax and a disputed levy on stakes
In Peru, licensed platforms pay a monthly 12% tax on their revenue. Peru's tax authority sets out the tax base: stakes and bonuses received, minus winnings and refunds paid, then minus a flat 2% for maintenance costs. Players themselves are not liable for it.
On top of that comes a selective consumption tax (ISC), created by Legislative Decree No. 1644 in September 2024. As of June 2026, it took 1% of the amounts staked. The industry is fighting it. At that date, according to Lima daily La República, the National Jury of Elections had validated the 5,000 signatures needed to file a constitutional challenge. Companies also reported 40 operators gone and around 1,500 points of sale closed between 2025 and 2026.
The public register shows the size of the market that remains. As of 27 October 2026, the register of licence holders lists 93 operating authorisations, 45 for games and 48 for sports betting, held by 48 companies. Ten of these authorisations are temporarily suspended.
Are GameArt slots approved in Peru?
No. As of 27 October 2026, no GameArt slot is approved in Peru. On that date, the studio was missing from the 375 companies registered as linked service providers. The register of game programs listed no game with GameArt as manufacturer either: Money Farm 2, Royal Gems and Tiger Heart, three titles it showcased in Lima in 2022, are nowhere to be found.
The consequence follows from the rules described above. As long as GameArt is not registered and its games are not approved, no licensed site in Peru can legally offer them, whether through Universal Soft or any other intermediary. In my view, this is exactly what the 2024 release should have addressed.
The deal can still be useful elsewhere. Universal Soft claims ten other countries, each with its own rules. As long as nothing changes in Peru, that is where the deal can find an outlet. The Peruvian status can also change, since registration and approval can be requested at any time and the registers are updated as resolutions come in.
A side-by-side timeline
Twelve dates are enough to measure the gap between Peru's calendar, Universal Soft's and GameArt's.
Date
Event
Party
15 and 16 June 2022
GameArt and Universal Soft exhibit at the Peru Gaming Show in Lima
Both companies
13 August 2022
Law No. 31557 on remote gaming and betting is published
Peruvian State
28 June 2023
Law No. 31806, which amends it, is published
Peruvian State
14 September 2023
GameArt and Offside Gaming deal, aimed at Peru and Chile
Signatures validated for an action against the ISC
Betting industry
27 October 2026
GameArt absent from the provider and game program registers
GameArt
The gap is striking. Universal Soft registered ten days after registration opened. GameArt, which announced its deal almost five months later, is still not listed more than two years on.
What is left of the deal in 2026?
More than two years after the announcement, the deal between GameArt and Universal Soft has had no public follow-up on the studio's side. The company updates section of its news feed, checked on 27 October 2026, no longer mentions the Peruvian firm after 4 July 2024: no launch, no first results, no new market.
From platforms to affiliate sites
Since summer 2024, GameArt no longer turns to platforms when it announces a partner linked to Latin America. It picks affiliate sites instead. In October 2024, the studio teamed up with Slotjava and Nuovicasino, then in November with GokkastenOnline and CacaNiquesOnline. In August 2025 came JogosDeApostas.com, an affiliate site aimed at Brazil that presents its games to local players. No new Latin American platform has appeared in that section since Universal Soft.
This can be read as a change of method, though the intentions remain unclear. An affiliate site distributes no real-money games: it showcases, compares and steers. For a studio, the shop window costs less than the counter, especially when every counter demands its own approvals.
And what about Lima?
In 2025, Universal Soft claimed a racing platform approved in Peru, a GLI certification presented as a passport to Europe and Africa, and a technical relaunch carried out the same year. Its African ambitions, a mere plan in the 2024 release, have since materialised: Tunisia and Equatorial Guinea are among the countries it claims. For GameArt's slots, however, Peru's regulated market stays out of reach until the register says otherwise.
What does this deal change for players outside Peru?
For players outside Peru, this deal changes nothing by itself. Online casino licensing is national, sometimes regional. A game certified in one market says nothing about whether a casino may offer it to you in another. What counts is the operator's licence where you live, and the certification of the game for that market.
The same reflex works everywhere. Regulators publish registers of the companies they license: Peru's MINCETUR lists its authorised operators, and the Malta Gaming Authority, which granted GameArt its B2B licence, keeps a public register of licensees. Before signing up anywhere, check the site against your own regulator's register. It remains the first habit to keep.
FAQs:
What is Universal Soft?
A Peruvian company founded in 2017 around a live horse racing betting platform. It also sells white label solutions and aggregates games from other providers.
Who runs Universal Soft?
Henry Tapia, its founder, who serves as CEO.
When was the GameArt and Universal Soft deal announced?
On 4 July 2024, in a press release published on GameArt's website.
Which GameArt games are available through Universal Soft?
The announcement gives no list. It only mentions the studio's portfolio of HTML5 slots, with no titles and no figures.
Is Universal Soft an online casino?
No. In Peru, it is registered as a linked service provider and holds no operating licence. Its clients are operators.
Could GameArt offer its games in Peru one day?
Yes, nothing in the law prevents it. It would have to register with MINCETUR, have each game certified by an accredited lab, then obtain approval.
How can I check whether a game is authorised in Peru?
Search for the game or its manufacturer in MINCETUR's register of game programs, which shows the version, the lab and the approval resolution.
How much do online gaming sites pay in Peru?
A monthly 12% tax on stakes net of winnings paid, plus, as of June 2026, an ISC of 1% of amounts wagered that the industry is contesting.
Can I play GameArt slots for real money where I live?
Only at an operator licensed in your jurisdiction that offers GameArt games approved for that market. Your regulator's public register is the place to check.
