About this app
What is Magic Stones?
Cyprus is not the first market to consider whether to block its welfare recipients from using their benefits to gamble, Brazil introduced a similar ban in 2025.
During a session of the House Audit Committee last Thursday, members of parliament (MPs), the Data Protection Commissioner and representatives from the Welfare Benefits Administration Service (WBAS), the Gaming & Casino Supervision Commission and the National Betting Authority (NBA) convened to discuss ways to identify and restrict gambling activity among GMI beneficiaries, as reported by Cyprus Mail.
While the intention is to protect vulnerable households and ensure welfare is spent on essential needs, proposed measures are being complicated by legal, technical and privacy obstacles.
About Magic Stones
Since then, it has evolved into something broader: a different development pipeline, a different role for developers and quality assurance (QA), a different way of organising teams and, increasingly, a different relationship with customers.
Cubeia’s first phase was an open approach to AI. Developers could use it whenever they wanted. Phase two brought structure, with everyone using the same agents and working through the same AI-driven pipeline. That required Cubeia to solve questions around quality, reliability and how agents could work together, while getting employees comfortable with the new way of working. Grenstad believes that work has largely been completed.
“During the hybrid period in Q1, Cubeia solved 259 issues. Once it moved to the AI-driven process, that figure rose to 421 – a 62% increase. Larger projects increased from 17 to 58. So the answer is yes: moving to AI-driven development has increased our output tremendously,” Grenstad says.
What is Magic Stones?
“The legislation mandated the regulation of the sector, which did not happen in the previous administration,” he explained. “We came into government with the sector operating for almost five years.
“We saw that they had entered football and advertising, and they have political and economic weight. Understanding that Congress would not prohibit the activity, we decided to put the brakes on and establish the rules.
“It’s not that I want to collect taxes because I need the money. I want to collect taxes for the sake of fairness: if a company sells cars, it pays taxes; if it sells drinks, it pays taxes. If it’s authorised to operate, it has to pay.”
