Gaming Realms sells Bingo Godz and Castle Jackpot

Gaming Realms has struck a deal to sell its Bingo Godz and Castle Jackpot brands to European Domain Management (EDM), as it looks to focus on the development of brands operating on its own platform.

The AIM-listed firm agreed to sell the brands, which run on the same Bede Gaming platform as other EDM brands including Bingo Stars, for £500,000.

EDM will pay £200,000 in cash, and a further £300,000 over the next 17 months with Gaming Realms set to reinvest the cash into its recently launched casino brand Spin Genie, which operates on its proprietary platform.

“With the successful launch of our own platform and the great growth we are seeing on Spin Genie, this is the next stage of our stated strategy to focus our resources on our own technology platform where we see a quicker and more sustainable return on investment than on third party operated sites such as Bingo Godz and Castle Jackpot,” Patrick Southern, Gaming Realms CEO, said.

However EDM believes it can turn around the fortunes of Bingo Godz and Castle Jackpot, which had losses associated of £2.1m in the 12 months ending 30 September, despite heavy marketing spend.

Ian Erskine, EDM’s managing director, said the business will invest in Bingo Godz, as well as merge its player pool with Bingo Stars, which he predicted would increase player liquidity and strengthen both brands.

“EDM has been very happy with Bingo Stars so when we saw Gaming Realms wanted to concentrate on their own platform and might be willing to sell Bingo Godz, we thought there were lots of opportunities,” Erskine said.

Gaming Realms launched Bingo Godz to much fanfare and a multi-million pound TV campaign in 2013.

But there was a change of direction last September when the firm launched Spin Genie on its own platform. In February Simon Smiley, chief market officer at Gaming Realms, pledged to back the new site with a “much bigger” marketing campaign.