Incorporation : 2008, subsidiary of the Blue Wombat group founded in 2002
Head office : 1 Railway St, Chatswood, New South Wales 2067, Australia
Headcount : between eleven and fifty people depending on the source
Disciplines : game maths, illustration, animation, interface design and audio composition, all handled in house
Registration : Australian company number not published on the studio's official channels
Distribution and regulatory framework
Model : no direct distribution, the studio delivers its content to partners
Chain : Games Lab to ReelPlay, then ReelPlay to Yggdrasil's YG Masters programme
Technology : games built with GATI, Yggdrasil's preconfigured toolkit
Other channel : content also listed among Relax Gaming's partner studios
Licences : no permit held in its own name, compliance sitting with the distributors
Certification : games tested by independent laboratories, random number generator audited
Game mechanics
Towering Pays : proprietary mechanic, grid expanding from five reels by three rows to five by eight
Progression : active paylines rising from fifteen to sixty-five as winning combinations land
Choice : a feature trail lets you accept a bonus or turn it down to chase a better one
Infinity Reels : engine owned by ReelPlay and used under licence
Principle : one reel added on the right with every win, no theoretical ceiling, progressive multiplier
Heritage : maths models inherited from the Australian venue market, favouring win frequency over peak payouts
Catalogue
Headline figure : more than three hundred titles across all formats
Online reality : around fifteen games actually visible in a casino lobby
Main series : Towering Pays Valhalla, Excalibur, Egypt and Babylon
Infinity Reels : Royal Dragon and Olympus
Standalone titles : Not Now Norman, Spirits of the Storm, Crazy Pop, Jewel of the Jungle, Tianlong
Back catalogue : Pirate Isle, Orc v Elf, Hen House, Football Frenzy, Rainforest Riches, among others
Social gaming : Slots Central platform launched on Facebook in 2012, extended to Android and iOS in late 2013
Technical : HTML5 development, direct play from a mobile browser with no app required
Current status of the studio
Last reported release : Towering Pays Excalibur, February 2022
Corporate website : still reachable but frozen, last news item published in July 2015
Copyright : notice stopped in 2016, contact page never filled in
Communication : no generic email address, support handled through a Zendesk portal and a form
Status : no public evidence confirms a shutdown, and none confirms a restart
What this means for you
Availability : titles stay live for as long as the distribution contracts run
Fairness : the return to player is locked into the code at certification and does not depend on studio activity
RTP : roughly 95.7% across documented titles, a notch below the market average
Check : read the rate shown in the game's own info panel, since it varies by operator
Spotting : look for the titles themselves or the Yggdrasil and Relax Gaming sections, as the studio name is rarely displayed
Safety : your protection comes from the casino licence, never from the game creator's
Access : the CASINO filter on this Kynox page only lists Games Lab operators certified in your jurisdiction
The homepage of the official Games Lab website, whose copyright notice stopped in 2016, still promotes Slots Central, Penny Parlor, Toot Toot ABC and Bomba.
Games Lab: the Australian casino provider hiding behind the Towering Pays mechanic
Games Lab is an Australian slot developer. The company was incorporated in 2008 and is based in Sydney. It specialises in land-based venue games, social gaming and, since 2021, real money slots distributed online. Its online catalogue rests on two engines. There is Towering Pays, its proprietary progressive grid mechanic. There is also Infinity Reels, which it runs under licence. The CASINO filter at the top of this Kynox page lists the Games Lab operators certified and regulated in your jurisdiction that host this content.
This studio raises a question few provider pages dare to ask. What is a supplier worth when its games still spin in certain online casinos while the company itself has gone quiet? That is the thread running through this article, so stay with me.
Is the Games Lab studio still active?
Nothing allows us to say so, and several signs invite doubt. No release credited to Games Lab has been reported by the specialist iGaming press since February 2022 and the launch of Towering Pays Excalibur. An absence of traces does not mean the business has closed. That distinction matters. Still, four years of silence in a sector where every launch gets its own press release is hard to brush aside.
The corporate website reinforces the impression. It still responds, and the sections on development, custom design and art services load normally. Yet the last news item announces the release of Final War: 5 Dragons, in July 2015. The copyright notice stopped in 2016. The Games Lab contact page still displays the template's default address fields, never filled in. No mention of the distribution partnerships signed since. No trace of the Towering Pays series, and no online catalogue.
Two readings therefore coexist. The first: activity has refocused on B2B commissions, a world where you prospect through trade shows and direct relationships, which makes a public shopfront optional. The second: production has simply stopped. Both hold up, and no public evidence settles it.
What this actually changes for a player
Far less than you might fear. A certified casino game stays a certified game. The return to player is locked into the code at validation. The random number generator has been audited. None of these parameters depends on the studio's day to day activity. Titles remain available in lobbies for as long as the distribution contracts run.
What does change sits in the long term. There are no new titles in sight. That means a game library ageing against rivals who publish every month, sometimes every week. No interface updates either, at a time when mobile display standards move fast. And eventually a risk of gradual removal from lobbies, because operators constantly weigh shelf space against commercial performance. Your winnings as a player depend on the online casino where you play, never on the studio that drew the symbols.
Who is the company behind the brand?
The legal entity is called Games Lab Services Pty Ltd. It was incorporated in 2008 and belongs to the Blue Wombat group, founded six years earlier in 2002. This double date explains a stubborn confusion. Games Lab itself claims a casino game development history going back to 2002. That year actually belongs to the parent company, and a good share of specialist directories has copied the shortcut without checking it.
The head office sits at 1 Railway St, in Chatswood, in the northern suburbs of Sydney, postcode 2067, with the production studio in the same metropolitan area. Headcount falls somewhere between eleven and fifty people depending on the source. The official description points to a small team of mathematicians, game designers, illustrators, animators, post-production artists, sound engineers and quality testers. A craft-scale outfit, in a sector where competitors field hundreds of staff and listed capital.
Getting in touch is an obstacle course. Two domains coexist, gameslab.com.au and games-lab.com.au, with no clear redirect from one to the other. No generic email address is published. Technical support runs through a Zendesk portal, commercial enquiries through a form. The company's Australian registration number appears nowhere on its official channels, contrary to sector practice where the registration sits in the footer. Nothing irregular, but an administrative reticence at odds with current standards of business transparency.
How do Games Lab games reach regulated casinos?
Through a three-link chain, which is exactly why you never see the studio name on screen. Games Lab distributes nothing itself. Instead it delivers its content to ReelPlay. That studio is also based in Sydney, founded in 2014 under the Chance Interactive name and rebranded in 2019, and it brought Games Lab on board as a production partner. ReelPlay then pushes those titles into Yggdrasil's YG Masters programme, where they are built with GATI. That is the Maltese publisher's preconfigured toolkit, designed to produce real money games that meet regulatory requirements and deploy quickly across an entire operator network. Relax Gaming also lists Games Lab content among its partner studios.
This architecture directly shapes the regulatory picture. No permit held in Games Lab's own name appears on any regulator's public register. Responsibility sits with the distributor. ReelPlay holds a licence issued by the British gambling regulator. Yggdrasil and Relax Gaming operate from Malta with the matching approvals. The games are therefore properly tested by independent laboratories and their rates verified, but the guarantee does not come from the creator.
There is nothing unusual about this setup. It matches the dominant model among small studios. You will find the same arrangement behind names such as Side City Studios or Peter & Sons, which all hand compliance and distribution to players with the right infrastructure. Just remember that your real protection rests on the licence of the operator where you open an account, and on that alone.
Why do Games Lab games not feel like European slots?
Because they come from somewhere else, quite literally. Games Lab cut its teeth on the Australian venue market. That is the world of pokies, a regulatory and cultural universe far removed from the Scandinavian model that dominates European online casino.
A different school of maths
Australian machines were designed for decades around long sessions, in physical venues, for a local crowd. That produces models where win frequency matters more than peak payout, where losing streaks are cushioned rather than embraced, and where features unfold in stages rather than through sudden breaks. Games Lab makes a point of starting every project with the concept and the maths. Volatility is treated as the foundation of the game rather than a final adjustment.
Compare that with the recent European generation, the one built on extreme volatility and dizzying win caps, and the gap in philosophy becomes obvious. Towering Pays Valhalla and Not Now Norman do not try to floor you with one spectacular spin. They build a progression instead. Some player profiles will love it. Multiplier hunters will find it slow.
Illustration as the core craft
The other legacy lies in how the teams are put together. Artists make up the bulk of the studio's staff, which remains rare in iGaming where developers usually dominate. Illustration, concept art, black and white storyboards or three-dimensional renders, interface design, environment creation. Games Lab sold these skills as standalone services, entirely separate from any game.
You can see it on screen. The backdrops carry a density and a colour coherence above the average for the independent segment. You can hear it too, since musical composition and custom audio are handled internally rather than pulled from sound libraries.
Towering Pays and Infinity Reels: two engines with two origins
The Games Lab online catalogue rests on a telling pair. One mechanic designed by the studio, and one borrowed from a neighbour.
The grid that climbs
Towering Pays is Games Lab's own creation. It is registered under its name and it is well built. The game starts in a five reel by three row configuration with fifteen active paylines. Every winning combination involving Tower symbols lifts the grid by one row, up to a maximum format of five by eight and its sixty-five paylines. Once at the top, the player reaches a feature trail where they can take the bonus on offer or decline it to chase something better.
That option to decline is the mechanic's real contribution. You stop being a spectator and become the one making the call. Towering Pays Valhalla opened the series in August 2021 on a Norse theme, with a return to player estimated by specialist guides at around 95.75% in the base game and lifted above 96% through the bonus buy. Towering Pays Excalibur followed in February 2022, with an announced rate of 95.7%, a win potential capped at 6,500x the stake, and a Quest Bet option that triggers a Hold & Spin. Towering Pays Egypt and Towering Pays Babylon complete the family.
The licensed engine
Infinity Reels does not belong to Games Lab but to ReelPlay, which granted it under licence. The principle is easy enough to grasp. Every win adds a reel to the right of the grid, with no theoretical ceiling, and a multiplier climbing alongside it.
Two titles came out of it. Royal Dragon Infinity Reels, launched in April 2021, starts at three by three and triggers a jackpot once the twelfth reel is reached. Olympus Infinity Reels arrived two months later in a three by four format. It went live first with Unibet and the Kindred group brands in late May, before a wider rollout. Both games share their Frenzy Spins, their incremental multipliers and a very similar atmosphere, on two of the most recycled themes in the sector.
What does the Games Lab game library actually hold?
The figure of more than three hundred titles circulates everywhere and it is plainly misleading. It adds together Australian venue machines, social games and white label productions built for third party clients. The catalogue credited to Games Lab and findable in an online casino lobby runs into the dozens. Specialist databases list around fifteen, and barely more than twenty in the widest inventories.
The back catalogue
Before moving online, Games Lab had already produced a considerable volume for venues and social platforms: Pirate Isle, Orc v Elf, Hen House, Football Frenzy, BasketBull, Aztec's Treasure, The Champ, Rainforest Riches, My Dragon. The Slots Central social platform, launched on Facebook in 2012 then extended to Android and iOS in late 2013, claimed more than three hundred thousand players at its peak, with titles such as Run Rabbit, Swamp Monster, River Wild and Mummy's Tomb. The studio also published consumer apps, including the vintage machine emulator Penny Parlor, along with a graphic novel, Vamp, and a tactical card game, Final War: 5 Dragons, released in 2015 and later adapted into a tabletop edition.
That scattering came at a price. While Games Lab explored card games and mobile publishing, dozens of European rivals were building brands on online slots alone. A team capable of drawing goblin armies worthy of a feature animation spent a decade doing graphic subcontracting. In this industry, talent has never been enough on its own.
The output built for online casinos
Alongside the two mechanic-driven series sit several standalone titles: Not Now Norman, on an alien theme, with a ladder feature and free spins, plus Spirits of the Storm, Crazy Pop, Jewel of the Jungle, and Tianlong, a five reel machine with ten bidirectional paylines, an expanding dragon, a wild-triggered re-spin and fifteen free games at doubled multiplier. All of it is built in HTML5, so it runs on smartphone and tablet without an app.
Strengths and limits of the Games Lab provider
The strengths all stem from the original craft:
Illustration : among the most accomplished art direction in the independent segment
Mechanic : the Towering Pays progression is easy to read and hands real decisions to the player
Compatibility : smooth HTML5 development on mobile, with no download
Pacing : a staged build that reads better than piles of decorative features
The reservations deserve the same candour:
RTP : around 95.7% across documented titles, a notch below the market average
Narrowness : roughly fifteen titles genuinely accessible online, nowhere near the three hundred advertised
Themes : Vikings, Olympus, Egypt, dragons, the studio keeps reaching into the obvious drawer
Renewal : no release reported since February 2022
Transparency : no licence of its own on display, no direct commercial contact, no corporate communication
How can you spot and play a Games Lab title?
First reflex, know where to look. In most online casino lobbies, the provider filter will display the distributor's name rather than the studio's. So search for the titles themselves, starting with Towering Pays and Infinity Reels, or browse the Yggdrasil and Relax Gaming sections where these games are often grouped. The creator's name usually appears in the information panel reachable from the game menu, alongside the return to player applied by that operator.
Second reflex, check the jurisdiction. Availability varies widely from one market to another because it depends on the integration agreements signed between each operator and the aggregators involved. A title live in one country can be entirely absent elsewhere, with no logic visible to the player. The CASINO filter at the top of this Kynox page only lists Games Lab establishments certified and authorised where you are, which rules out the dead ends straight away.
One last piece of method. Read the return to player shown inside the game itself rather than the figure quoted by guides. Some operators deploy adjusted rate versions. The gap can reach several percentage points. That holds true for Games Lab as it does for any other provider, but on a game library already sitting below average, the check carries particular weight.
Frequently asked questions about the Games Lab provider
What is Games Lab?
Games Lab is an Australian slot developer incorporated in 2008 and based in Sydney. The studio designs games for Australian venues, social platforms and online casinos, with a clear specialism in illustration and custom game design.
Who owns Games Lab?
Games Lab belongs to the Australian group Blue Wombat, founded in 2002. The legal entity is named Games Lab Services Pty Ltd and its head office sits at 1 Railway St, in Chatswood, in the northern suburbs of Sydney. Headcount falls between eleven and fifty people depending on the source.
Does Games Lab hold a gaming licence?
No permit held in Games Lab's own name appears on any regulator's public register. Its games reach regulated markets under its distributors' licences. ReelPlay holds a British authorisation, while Yggdrasil and Relax Gaming operate from Malta with the matching approvals.
Are Games Lab games trustworthy?
Yes, when they are offered by a regulated operator. The titles are certified by independent laboratories within their distributor's framework, with an audited random number generator and a verified return to player. Your protection depends above all on the licence of the casino where you open an account.
What is the Towering Pays mechanic?
Towering Pays is the proprietary mechanic of Games Lab. The game starts at five reels by three rows with fifteen active paylines, then the grid climbs one row with every winning combination involving Tower symbols, up to five by eight and sixty-five paylines.
What is Infinity Reels at Games Lab?
Infinity Reels is a game engine owned by the Australian studio ReelPlay and used by Games Lab under licence. Every win adds a reel to the right of the grid, with no theoretical ceiling, and a multiplier that climbs alongside it until the sequence ends.
How many Games Lab games are there?
The studio claims more than three hundred titles, but that total combines venue machines, social games and white label productions. The catalogue credited to Games Lab and findable in an online casino lobby comes to only about fifteen titles.
What are the best known Games Lab games?
The most widely distributed titles are Towering Pays Valhalla, Towering Pays Excalibur, Royal Dragon Infinity Reels and Olympus Infinity Reels. The catalogue also includes Towering Pays Egypt, Towering Pays Babylon, Not Now Norman, Spirits of the Storm, Crazy Pop, Jewel of the Jungle and Tianlong.
What is the RTP of Games Lab slots?
Documented rates sit around 95.7%, a notch below the market average of roughly 96%. Some Games Lab titles lift that figure above 96% through the bonus buy. Always check the value shown in the game's information panel, as it varies by operator.
Does Games Lab still release new games?
No release credited to Games Lab has been reported by the specialist press since February 2022. The studio's corporate website has not been updated since 2015. Nothing officially confirms a shutdown, but such prolonged silence is a notable signal in a highly communicative sector.
Do Games Lab games work on mobile?
Yes. Titles built for online casinos are developed in HTML5 and launch straight from a smartphone or tablet browser, with no app to download. The display adapts automatically to screen orientation and size.
How can you find a casino offering Games Lab games?
Use the CASINO filter at the top of this Kynox page. It lists only the certified and regulated operators in your jurisdiction that are powered by Games Lab titles. Availability varies widely from one market to another, since it depends on the integration agreements signed between each casino and the aggregators distributing this content.
