NYX Gaming Group sets up US subsidiary

Posted on October 18, 2012 by r.weston

NextGen Gaming USA, incorporated in Nevada, will begin by offering social casino games to licensed operators – first deal announced with New York-listed operator Nevada Gold

London headquartered software developer NYX Gaming Group has set up a Nevada-based subsidiary, representing its first move into the US market.

Overseen by group CEO Matt Davey, NextGen Gaming USA will offer social slots to companies licensed in the Silver State, with a view to establishing a relationship ahead of any potential future regulation of the vertical.

Davey told eGaming Review: “We are hoping that Nevada licensed operators will look to us for social as a means of testing the water before they can bring slots online real money, and then we hope that when the time comes they will want our [real-money] online technology.”

The company today also announced a deal with New York-listed operator Nevada Gold – owner of four bricks and mortar casinos in the states of Washington and South Dakota – to supply it with a social gaming platform.

Davey said of the deal, which will see the two parties work together on the development of a fully-integrated virtual credits-based offering: “We are excited to work with Nevada Gold in establishing a new benchmark for modern gaming in the North American market.”

NYX Gaming Group’s first Facebook app, SlotsPoint, was launched in January and features a full suite of games from one central hub, and that was followed last month by the launch of a mobile casino suite under the ‘Move’ brand.

The mobile launch, which has gone live with inaugural client LeoVegas, makes use of the proprietary NYX Open Gaming System and similarly features a range of slots titles from the group.

The NYX Gaming Group was formed when Stockholm-based NYX Interactive acquired Sydney company NextGen Gaming in November 2011, however the combined entity has made a conscious decision to keep the brands separate and Davey explained: “The NYX brand is well-known in Europe but NextGen is well known as a slots business in general, and we feel that makes it more suited to the US.”

Tom Victor

Bally and High 5 Games sign development deal

Posted on August 6, 2012 by t.washington

Deal will see “substantial number” of H5G’s titles made available under the Bally brand

Bally Technologies has entered a deal with US game developer High 5 Games (HG5) to publish a number of its releases under the Bally brand.

The multi-year agreement will see slot game specialist H5G develop a “substantial” number of games which will be made available to Bally’s land-based, online and mobile clients.

H5G has long supplied games for the land-based casino industry, while earlier this year it launched a social gaming subsidiary to develop products for the online, mobile and social markets.

Jean Venneman, VP of product management and licensing at Bally Technologies: “We’re excited to partner with a game creator that has such a world-class track record of developing high-performing and engaging game content. We look forward to leveraging H5G’s newest game content to help casino operators across the world drive revenues and delight players.”

Anthony Singer, CEO of H5G, added: “We are delighted to partner with Bally Technologies, a long-time leader in the casino gaming industry. With Bally’s sophisticated new ALPHA 2 game platform, and a new Bally Interactive division committed to mobile, online, and social business-to-business game content, we believe that the sky is the limit for this next generation of H5G games.”

Muckleshoot Tribe invests in social betting game

Posted on July 31, 2012 by t.washington

Federally recognised Washington State tribe makes first move into online gaming

The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe of Washington State has entered into an equity partnership with social betting game Bookie Mania.

Bookie Mania was founded by ex-Chiligaming director Rohin Malhotra and is set to go live on Facebook in September, with other platforms and languages to follow.

It will act as a social betting exchange, allowing players to buy virtual currency so that wagers can be made between friends on anything from sporting events to the weather.

The deal – the financial details of which are yet to be disclosed – is the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe’s first venture into online gaming and could signal its intent to explore real-money gambling opportunities should Washington State pass the required regulation. The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe is a federally recognised tribe which owns the Muckleshoot casino in Washington State.

Malhotra said of the deal: “Bookie Mania is thrilled to have entered into an agreement with Muckleshoot Indian Tribe for a share in our business. It provides our business with more than just investment but also a deep relationship with this resourceful Tribe, its operation and its people.”

The Washington state legislature passed a bill that outlawed online gaming and poker in 2006 – a law that was upheld four years later. Since then online gaming firms have pulled out of the juristiction, including Pokerstars which ceased taking bets in October 2010 and Full Tilt just one month later.

Several other US tribes have entered into deals with online gaming firms this year as they begin to shape up for a regulated online gambling market.

Bwin.party announced a 10-year B2B deal with the United Auburn Indian Tribe Community (UAIC) in May to offer online poker services in California “if suitable intrastate legislation is enacted in the state”, while gaming technology provider GTECH G2 has also partnered with two Indian tribes – Barona in California and Seneca Niagara in New York State – to launch free play casino sites.

Earlier this month Boyd Gaming struck a deal with the Wilton Rancheria tribe in California. It is the first time the company has made plans to operate in the state and represents a vital in-road into the state where the online gambling market could be worth $5.5bn by year five of operations, according to H2 Gambling Capital.

Meanwhile Native American groups have moved to protect their interests ahead of state-by-state egaming regulation by introducing a draft tribal gaming bill at the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (SCIA) last week. The Tribal Online Gaming Act of 2012 is designed to help ensure tribes are well positioned to benefit from legal online gambling in the US, without compromising their revenues and sovereignty and calls on federal government to implement nationwide laws concerning the regulation of online gaming.

WMS forms new egaming division

Posted on July 17, 2012 by t.washington

Chicago-based Williams Interactive will be headed up by WMS president Orrin J. Edidin

WMS has announced the formation of Williams Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary that will focus on expanding and developing its egaming services.

The new entity will be headed up by Orrin J. Edidin, president of WMS Industries, who has been promoted to the position of president and chief executive officer of Williams Interactive.

Williams Interactive will concentrate on its online wagering, social, casual and mobile gaming offerings in order to “capitalise on the emerging industry’s significant potential growth opportunities by supporting casinos’ participation in these new distribution channels”, WMS said in a statement.

Brian R. Gamache, chairman and CEO of WMS Industries, added: “Establishing Williams Interactive is an important step forward in concentrating our efforts and increasing our collective ability to leverage our operational and development initiatives to propel growth and returns to the next level.”

In the last few years WMS has built a suite of egaming services aimed at supporting the online efforts of its land-based customers. Its operations include B2C online casino JackpotParty.com and a B2B online casino site in Belgium in collaboration with Groupe Partouche.

More recently WMS strengthened its egaming credentials by acquiring online gaming content developer Jadestone Group and Phantom EFX, a leader in social and mobile game development with a suite of more than 35 casino and slot products developed for desktop, Facebook, and mobile.

Earlier this month the company also announced a strategic alliance with Dragonfish, the B2B arm of 888 Holdings, to pursue both social and real-money online poker in the US, when legally permitted.

WMS is one of more than 30 companies to have applied for an interactive poker licence in the state of Nevada, although its application has yet to be given a place on the state’s Gaming Control Board agenda.

Newly appointed Williams Interactive president and CEO Orrin J. Edidin added: “Creating a single organisation to unify the company’s efforts in online wagering and interactive gaming distribution channels, while drawing upon our extensive existing library of great gaming content, will better enable WMS to participate in the many high-margin opportunities this content convergence offers.

Social to push mobile gaming to “$100bn by 2017”, study predicts

Posted on May 25, 2012 by t.washington

Social operators moving to real money will see amounts wagered on mobile casino overtake sportsbook in coming years

Rapid growth in social gaming, coupled with impending US intrastate regulation, will see amounts wagered via smartphones and tablets reach US$100bn (£63.7bn) by 2017, suggests a new report.

Conducted by mobile analyst firm Juniper Research, ‘Mobile Gaming: Casino, Lotteries & Betting 2012 – 2017’ charts the expected growth of mobile gaming, which accounted for $20bn in worldwide amounts wagered last year.

It claims that the current trend, which has seen mobile become an increasingly important revenue stream for leading sportsbooks, will continue. Such assertions have been supported by recent results announcements. In William Hill’s full-year results presentation for 2011, for example, group CEO Ralph Topping revealed the company had set a target of generating 40% of sportsbook revenues from mobile by 2014, while mobile accounted for 38% of total amounts wagered on Paddy Power’s dot.com sportsbook in the company’s results for the first quarter of 2012.

The report also says that the US Department of Justice’s clarification on the Wire Act, announced in December, has “effectively reopened” the US egaming sector and will contribute to also driving further mobile growth.

Despite sportsbook’s leading position in the mobile sector, however the report’s author, Dr Windsor Holden, said casino and games would overtake sportsbook as the key driver of mobile revenue in the coming years due largely to the rapidly expanding social gaming sector: “Social gaming companies such as Zynga are seeking to move from play-for-fun casino games into real money gambling, while pure-play mobile casinos including Probability have begun to integrate with the Facebook mobile platform.

“In this way, consumers will be able to use their social networks to register for casino games, substantially increasing both the reach and engagement of such services,” Holden explained.

Facebook IPO third-largest in US history

Posted on May 18, 2012 by t.washington

Starting price of US$38 a share places social network ahead of General Motors, behind only Visa and Enel SpA

Social network Facebook is anticipated to raise US$16bn at its initial public offering today, making it the largest ever IPO for a technology company and the third-largest ever on US soil.

The valuation comes from a starting share price of $38, putting the company behind only credit card firm Visa and Italian power company Enel SpA. The 2010 float of motoring giant General Motors raised $15.8bn while Google’s IPO eight years ago raised $1.67bn.

Shares in Facebook will begin trading at 11am Eastern Time today (4pm BST), with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s (pictured) estimated $18.95bn fortune expected to soar.

Google’s market cap at the time of flotation was $23bn, while Facebook – after increasing the size of the float by close to 25% earlier this week – is expected to be valued at $104bn. Zynga raised $1bn in a December flotation which valued the company at nine times that amount.

The IPO may convince Facebook to speed up its online gambling plans,revealed exclusively by eGaming Review in November last year, with tentative preparations in place to open up real-money gambling on a trial basis in the United Kingdom.

Last August saw the company relax its egaming advertising restrictions, although actual gambling games on the network remain restricted to freeplay or virtual credits.

This has not stopped a number of egaming operators and service providers go live with Facebook apps of their own, with Chiligaming launching a free-to-play poker network last year and IGT buying existing Facebook games developer Double Down Interactive in January for a sum which could rise as high as $500m.

Earlier this week Double Down added Texas Hold’Em Poker to its Facebook casino, while yesterday saw social games publisher Hooplo Media launchgames based on athlete Usain Bolt and footballer Cristiano Ronaldo.

Bwin.party “very close” to launching social offering

Posted on May 16, 2012 by t.washington

Social gaming divison to be launched by end of May once “fairly small” acquisition is completed

Bwin.party is in the process of completing an acquisition which will allow it to launch its social gaming offering by the end of May, co-CEO Norbert Teufelberger has revealed.

Teufelberger’s announcement came during an analyst call discussing bwin.party’s results for the three months ending 31 March 2012, when he said the company was “very close” to beginning implementing its social gaming strategy.

“We are very close to completing the whole plan. This is not only a fairly small acquisition but encompasses many other activities,” Teufelberger said.

The co-CEO was keen to stress that the purchase would be less high-profile than other gaming companies’ moves into the sector, such as IGT’s US$500m deal to buy Double Down Interactive and Playtech’s planned acquisition of CTXM and Viaden Gaming, which was later changed to a product licensing agreement.

“[The acquisition] will be for a fairly low amount, and we are not doing it in the traditional way. Don’t expect an aggressive acquisition similar to the ones our peers have done,” he explained. In March he described Double Down as “an inferior product and software” to what bwin.party could produce.

Teufelberger also discussed the development of a social gaming divisionseparate from the company’s real-money gambling operations in March, admitting that he: “Never believed [social] was something that’s going to materialise and … underestimated how powerful it would be.”

He went on to reveal that bwin.party had looked into deals to acquire “at least thirty” social gaming operators, but that “Valuations were not what we wanted to pay, so we are now in the process of building a team and we are going to launch a dedicated business unit distinct from our real-money operations.”

In this morning’s earnings release bwin.party stated that “[it believes] that by leveraging our core assets, we can make a meaningful inroad into this fast growing and profitable market with relatively low levels of incremental investment.”

Facebook announces May 18 IPO date

Posted on May 2, 2012 by t.washington

Social network set to raise US$5bn in highly anticipated share offering.

Facebook is set to launch its long awaited initial public offering (IPO) on 18 May, according to reports from Silicon Valley.

The social network, which has 900m users worldwide, had delayed the floatation after initially announcing its fundraising intentions last year. It is expected, however to have a valuation of around US$100bn and raise around $5bn in the share offering, the largest ever by an internet-based company.

The move comes just five months after social games developer Zynga, which supplies many of Facebook’s most popular games, launched an IPO of its own valuing the company at $9bn.

In November last year, eGaming Review exclusively revealed that Facebook was in exploratory talks with UK operators to open a real-money online gambling platform on its site, however this has since been delayed as the social network finalises the exact business model it would employ and which would convince online operators to offer their products under a workable framework. Gamesys and 888 are known to be among the first companies that would look to add real-money products on Facebook.

It was reported that the company planned to offer an initial eight ‘licences’ to eight individual operators, two from each of the four verticals, with the social network being used as a platform for the firms to integrate their apps.

Facebook currently recoups 30% of virtual currency deposits from social gaming sites including Zynga poker – which has more than 30m users – Double Down Casino and Bingo Blitz.

Switching to real money gambling, initially in the UK, would open up a substantial new revenue source for the site.

The IPO will be preceded by Facebook roadshows, expected to be led by company management including chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and chief financial officer David Ebersman, starting 7 May, according to Reuters.

Social gaming and regulated gambling: a good fit?

Posted on May 1, 2012 by j.yarker

By Behnam Dayanim is a partner with the law firm of Axinn, Veltrop and Harkrider LLP, and co-chairs its litigation and regulatory practice.

Everyone, it seems, believes that legalisation and regulation of internet gambling in the US lies just around the corner. Among those eyeing potential opportunities in the sector are social gaming companies. Social gaming’s creativity in developing attractive games for the mass public is unmatched, but the gambling sector presents a very different sort of challenge.

Here are four considerations that no doubt social media companies are considering carefully in determining whether to jump into the gambling market.

Innovation versus regulation. In their current environments, social gaming operators are free to innovate as they see fit, developing new and exciting games designed to entice ever-larger numbers of players. A regulated gambling operator, on the other hand, requires regulatory approval for new games. In many cases, the types of internet gambling that can be offered will be strictly limited. Social gaming’s ever-present desire to be first with the new twist to its existing offerings will run headlong into the need for regulatory examination.
Ease of play versus required identity verification. Again, in the social gaming world, a key concept is ease of play. It must be straightforward for a consumer to begin play, and all are welcome, generally regardless of age or location. By contrast, with regulated gambling, detailed identity, age and location verification will be required. A gambling operator also will need to keep tabs on players to protect against compulsive activity. All of these limitations are foreign to the social gaming company – and, in some cases, run counter to its corporate DNA.
Play money versus real money. Social gaming has very little to do with money. The player herself generally does not anticipate receiving her money back or winning new money as a result of play. Regulated gambling is all about money which carries with it a number of complications. A regulated operator must maintain a robust anti-money-laundering compliance programme, incur reporting obligations to state and federal authorities and implement a secure and reliable set of payment processing mechanisms.
Privacy versus scrutiny. A senior officer or director of a social gaming company today is not used to close governmental scrutiny. Oh, many social gaming companies have been subject to government scrutiny of their business activities. But few executives have endured searching scrutiny of their private lives – their financial histories, criminal records, personal habits and the like. That marijuana bust 20 years ago? It will be disclosed.

Do these considerations mean that social gaming companies ultimately won’t dip their collective toe into the regulated gambling waters? I don’t think so. The potential opportunities in regulated gambling are lucrative, and someone will make the attempt – either in partnership with a regulated operator or independently. But they should not underestimate the obstacles or believe that, because the games are similar, the business challenges will be as well.