Launches and sign-ups 31 July 2015

Odobo, the industry’s first HTML5 developer program and marketplace, has released an online version of the popular land-based slots game Bat Family, developed by Fuga Gaming Technologies.

The Bat Family slot game invites players to spend the night in the mysterious old haunted castle. Inside lives a hospitable family of vampires: the wise father, the elegant son and the glamorous daughter. The game is a classic 5-reel, 30-line video slot game, styled as a humorous homage to the old naïve vampire movies and Addams family franchise.

“Bat Family is a proven title with undeniable land-based success. It is now available to players online for real money and with as a high-quality mobile product. We’re grateful to Fuga for choosing Odobo to do this. Bat Family is a great addition to the Odobo Marketplace and is on for all devices and within the Odobo Play app for social casino play,” Glen Bullen, partner success manager at Odobo, said.

Mobile gaming developer Nektan has today announced it has secured an intermediary remote gaming licence for the Irish online gambling market.

The Gibraltar-licensed supplier has obtained the licence ahead of new regulations set to come into force tomorrow (1 August).

“We are pleased that Nektan is among the very first operators to have gained approval for a gaming licence in Ireland,” David Gosen, Nektan’s Chief Executive Officer, said.

Russian-facing online poker operator Pokerdom has this week launched a new poker variant Pineapple Open Face Chinese Poker in partnership with Connective Games.

“Connective Games is committed to innovation and to creating as diverse an offering of games as possible, and our platform allows us to develop and integrate new games very quickly,” Konstantin Zubarev, CEO at Connective Games, said.

“That means we can offer the games that the players and our clients really want,” he added.

White-label Bitcoin casino solutions provider Coingaming.io has announced the launch of its bitcoin-only sportsbook in time for the start of the new Premier League season.

“The underlying bitcoin sportsbook technology shall offer significant advantages over traditional fiat currency based fixed-odds platforms,” Mark McGuinness, communications director of Coingaming, said.

“We have over 10,000 live betting markets on offer per week, including fast developing betting sports such as MMA and eSports,” he added.

Virtual sports provider Inspired has extended its virtuals partnership with Slovakian operator Niké, which first launched Inspired’s products across online and retail in 2012.

The deal will see an extension of Inspired’s presence in Niké’s retail outlets, and the addition of new features online, including adding Slovakian teams to its Rush Football product.

“We are thrilled to extend our virtual sports contract with Niké and continue to work closely together to align our product development with Niké’s channel and retail expansion,” Steve Rogers, Inspired’s SVP of virtual sports, said.

NetEnt has announced that a €4.6 million jackpot has fallen on its Mega Fortune Dreams game to a user playing the mobile version of the game at LeoVegas.

“This year has been golden for players of NetEnt’s pooled games, and the winners keep on coming,” Simon Hammon, chief product officer of NetEnt, said.

“Plus, with our mobile content, more of our large jackpots are being won on the move. This is another great win on LeoVegas.com and we are thrilled to see yet another player winning one of our large jackpots,” he added.

Genesis Gaming will launch its new ‘Dinosaur Adventure’ video slot exclusively on Unibet. The game will roll out on three channels – desktop, HTML5 mobile web and the Spin City native application.

“Dinosaur Adventure was designed to be an exciting game for the true gambler,” Scott Sims, head of global design at Genesis Gaming, said. “The wild multipliers in the free spins bonus bring in the high volatility and big wins that make for a thrilling game,” he added.

Grosvenor Casinos has announced the launch of a new social media campaign ‘Grosvenor Gent’ next month fronted by The Only Way is Essex star Mark Wright.

The Rank Group-owned casino operator’s new campaign will debut across Facebook and Twitter from 6 August and will see Wright share his advice on casino style and etiquette on a number of videos.

“Grosvenor’s stylish and confident ad campaign is focused on the pure thrill of gaming,” Tina Martin, head of brand and marcomms for Grosvenor Casinos, said.

Cherry-owned network Game Lounge has expanded its foothold in Finland’s egaming market after paying €1.2m (£850,000) to acquire a number of domains from a “prominent affiliate”.

The Scandinavian-focused network announced it had bought a number of domains including nettikasinovertailu.info, netticasino.eu and onlinecasinofindr.com which it expects will add over €600,000 to Cherry’s EBITDA annually.

“The domains will contribute positively from day one and we have the capacity to take them over and all of the operations without adding personnel,” Jonas Cederholm, CEO of Game Lounge, said.

Social casino operator High 5 Games (H5G) has joined forces with mobile marketing specialists Swrve in a bid to improve player retention and monetisation for its mobile games and apps.

H5G said that Swrve’s mobile marketing platform would allow it to “take action” to retain, engage and monetize app users “rather than simply gather data”.

“H5G’s goal is to engage on a more personal level with our mobile players and keep them playing longer and for higher stakes,” VP of marketing, Patrick Benson, said.

Daily fantasy sports operator DraftKings has raised $300m in a new funding round led by Fox Sports that values the company at over $1bn.

The Series D funding round takes DraftKing’s raised capital to $375m, and included investments from the Kraft Group, Atlas Ventures, the Rein Group and the MLB, NHL and MLS.

DraftKings said it would use the investment to continue building its web and mobile products, launch internationally, and explore new opportunities for vertical expansion.

Las Vegas casino operator Treasure Island has launched a mobile sportsbook to players in Nevada after striking a deal with Miomni Gaming.

The app is available on both Android and iOS and allows players to check lines, place bets, and monitor account balances all from the mobile devices.

“With mobile usage dominating the marketplace, creating an app was the obvious next step,” Tony Nevill, Treasure Island sportsbook director, said.