Uri Poliavich is an out-of-the-box thinker and the head of the iGaming company Soft2Bet, which he has grown from a small company to an industry giant. Poliavich is a multi-disciplinary professional with a legal background, operational skills, and an admirable humanitarian philosophy that brings him business and philanthropic success. Uri Poliavich was born in Ukraine in 1981 and moved to Israel when he was 14. 

Beginnings: Legal Studies And Business Phenomenon

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Poliavich worked in the legal industry and received an LLB from Bar-Ilan University. The legal fields serve as a roadmap for the rest of the entrepreneur’s career, seeing that the law is a passion for him, and it enables the consideration of structures, frameworks, contracts, and compliance which will be vital for him in the world of online gaming which has a lot of regulation. After working as a legal intern specializing in M&A and International Real Estate, he moved to Business Development, a field where Poliavich later received Vice President of Business Development at WK Group, and Consultant at Playtech with a focus on the Emerging Markets.

These early experiences formed the base of his operational rating. He learned how to lead geographically dispersed teams, understand compliance, and manage growth and the opportunity in risks.

Starting Soft2Bet: The Company’s Vision and Planned Expansion

In 2016, Uri Poliavich started Soft2Bet, and with his legal and operational background, he believed he could build a vertically integrated international company. Since the beginning, Uri’s plan was to marry extreme technical detail and regulatory compliance to solve problems that are customized, portable, and adaptable.

Soft2Bet, during Poliavich’s leadership, started to employ a hybrid-model strategy. They started a B2C operation and began building a customized gaming experience. They also started a B2B operation and built a plug-and-play technology stack that other operators could use to build and/or license gaming brands. This setup gives the company a great deal of adaptability: the B2C gives operational insight and the B2B augments market access.

Innovation Through Gamification: The MEGA Platform

Poliavich’s greatest strategic bet has been on gamification. He spearheaded the Motivation Engineering Gaming Application (MEGA), an in-house gamification engine aimed at increasing player engagement by incorporating mission-based mechanics, incentivizing rewards, and adapting challenges to the player’s behavior. MEGA is not just a gimmick to have gaming. Under Poliavich’s direction, it is a key differentiator that won the Global Gaming Narrative EMEA 2025 MEGA Product Launch of the Year. Poliavich’s innovation focus on MEGA gaming continues to provide Soft2Bet, Poliavich’s partner branded companies, and customers immeasurable long-term value. 

Scaling Globally: Regulatory Strategy & Geographic Expansion

Measurable Expansion is a trademark of Poliavich’s leadership. He anchored Soft2Bet’s European Operations to Malta because of its Regulatory Framework and Gaming Friendly Environment. Under his management, the Malta based company has gained a plethora of licenses across borders including Sweden, Denmark, and Ontario (Canada).

He is strategically and deliberately also expanding to North America. Instead of a rush, Poliavich prefers a phased approach focusing on Compliance, Local Team, and Operational Adaptation to the Regulation to streamline processes. His approach is bold and reflects the long lasting vision of scaling responsibly rather than for quick wins.

Giving Back: Soft2Bet Invest and the Corporate Purpose 

Under Uri Poliavich’s direction, there is more to Soft2Bet than just making money. In 2024, he started Soft2Bet Invest, an innovation fund worth €50 – 52 million (and counting) to help support and mentor new and established businesses in the gaming and casual gaming industries. Poliavich plans to help driven entrepreneurs develop new and AI-focused ideas that help innovate and improve user experience and user engagement. This not only impacts the surrounding ecosystem positively, but also supports Poliavich’s vision of sustainable and long-lasting value.  

Poliavich is an entrepreneur and philanthropist. He and his wife Yael, created the Yael Foundation, which supports Jewish communities and empowers their youth in dozens of countries across the globe. Poliavich demonstrates business charity “drives business,” a clear realization that business social impact and social commercial success can thrive simultaneously.  

Leadership Style: Pragmatic, Purpose-Oriented, and Iterative  

Poliavich’s leadership style, more than any other, is characterized by the practicality of the situation, and a devotion towards achieving and encouraging progress. Rather than pursuing radical disruptive changes to a project, he designs and encourages his teams to engage in a cycle of business “experimentation, and refinement,” where he encourages his teams to continually answer the unabated question, “What’s next?”

Even at events like SiGMA Europe, he has emphasized the ease of use in user experience. He believes real innovation deals with effective solutions to real problems without over complicating the process to potentially confuse the user. He Tries to promote the workplace he has built to allow the maximum amount of proximity, openness and cooperation with hypre transparency and workplace proximity of upper management to lower level employees

Final Thoughts

The Poliavich enterprise illustrates leadership and strategical functions, which integrate and strive to provide a lawful bound, blended and intermingled socio-technological innovation systems, and with a lawful, civilized order to the fusion with logical order and to Amin, the corresponding blend, and the interlaced ethics and motivation and the Interlaced motivation and with a socio-technological civilized order. 

Poliavich has managed to devise a winning business strategy with Soft2Bet by building a custom modular platform with a gamified structure, winning strategy by reproducing, capital and positive with the correct trajectory for profit and positive relationship strategically, shifting the business and gaming system. The business model is valuable, sustainable and with a Win-Win gaming ecosystem and with education. The energy business model has attained this, creating business leadership and strategy profit growth with heart and vision.