Launches and sign-ups 16 May 2012
Launches and sign-ups from the egaming industry in the last seven days (09 May to 16 May 2012).
Rank to buy Gala Coral’s casinos
Conditional agreement worth £205m follows earlier breakdown of talks between the two operators.
Rank Group has reached a conditional agreement to acquire Gala Coral’s 23 land-based casinos for a sum of £205m, some £45m less than the figure first mooted when discussions between the parties began in January this year.
The news comes less than two months after the two parties ended discussions over the potential sale, with the former explaining “It became clear that the proposed terms of the acquisition would not serve the best interests of Rank’s shareholders”.
However Rank chairman and CEO Ian Burke (pictured) explained today in a statement that “By rolling out the ‘G Casino’ format into the Gala estate and expanding the Grosvenor Casino brand into 11 new cities, we will accelerate the growing awareness of the brand and support the development of a multi-channel gaming business.”
The agreement covers 23 venues across the United Kingdom, representing all of Gala’s land-based casinos with the exception of Dundee and Gibraltar, bringing Rank’s estate up to 58 properties. Nine of these venues will be rebranded under Rank’s ‘G Casino’ banner.
Bwin launches Italian live casino with Evolution
Bwin.party has launched an Italian-facing live casino with Evolution Gaming for its bwin.it brand, supplementing live blackjack offering already live on Gioco Digitale.
As with the Gioco Digitale launch last November, bwin’s offering features blackjack and roulette, with native dealers brought in from land-based casinos in Italy.
The launch is the second in as many months in the country from Evolution, which was named live casino supplier of the year at last week’s eGaming Review B2B Awards.
In late April Lottomatica launched its own Evolution-powered live casino in its core Italian market, including blackjack, roulette and baccarat. The supplier also launched a dedicated casino room for Unibet, hosted in its Riga studios, and signed an exclusive deal with Dutch operator Oranje Casino to supply two localised live casino tables, both in March.
Winga owner to be bought for £187m
Tokyo-listed mobile carrier NTT Docomo has issued a tender offer of Â¥24bn (£187m) to acquire all shares of Winga.it owner Buongiorno.
The offer – made through the Japanese company’s German subsidiary Docomo Deutschland – would include Buongiorno’s majority shareholder Mauro del Rio sell his stake to the company.
Buongiorno is one of more than 60 companies to have applied for a licence to operate in the Spanish market, and could find out whether or not it has been successful as soon as 1 June following a recent announcement from the country’s egaming regulator.
Seven days in launches and sign-ups:
PKR launches fast download
PKR has rolled out a new ‘fast’ download up to eight times faster than its previous version, the 3D poker operator has claimed.
Players will now take less than five minutes from starting the download to being seated at a table, while download time on a four-megabyte line previously averaged between 20 to 25 minutes, and sometimes longer.
Under the new system players will be able to register and choose avatars before the download has fully completed, gaining access to the software within two minutes of the download starting.
Kambi bolsters Spanish presence with Acrismatic deal
Unibet’s B2B subsidiary Kambi Sports Solutions has signed a deal to supply Spanish land-based casino operator Grupo Acrismatic with a complete sports betting solution ahead of the issuing of licences to operate in the market.
Under the terms of the exclusive, two-year deal, Kambi will provide odds compilation, risk management , customer profiling and a sports betting platform, with the site set to launch ahead of the start of the 2012-13 La Liga football season in August 2012.
Boyles signs Buzz Sports deal
In-play sports betting software provider Buzz Sports has signed a deal which will see its flagship ZonePlay product go live on Irish bookmaker Boylesports’ sportsbook.
ZonePlay, which was awarded the sports betting innovation trophy at the 2010eGaming Review Operator Awards, allows players to bet on incidents in matches, offering live odds on what will occur next during sporting events.
Interwetten named as Lotus F1 sponsor
Malta-licensed operator Interwetten has agreed a deal to sponsor the Lotus Formula 1 racing team, building on its existing partnerships with football teams in Spain and Italy.
Interwetten’s branding featured on Lotus cars for the first time in yesterday’s Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, where the team’s drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean finished third and fourth respectively. It joins a number of other partners including security software company Symantec.
Quickspin enters partnership with GTS
Swedish-based game development studio Quickspin has entered into a multi-year partnership with Gaming Technology Solutions (GTS).
Under the terms of the deal GTS will be able to offer games from Quickspin’s portfolio to a number of operators using the company’s EdGE platform.
Pokerstars in social media integration
PokerStars has launched ‘PokerStars Boom!’, a tool which allows players to share their winning poker hands with friends via social networks.
Currently available in France and Italy, and soon to be rolled out globally by the operator, players can click a button within the PokerStars client to share video replays of hands on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Fremantle to launch Space Invaders slot
FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME) has announced a two-year agreement with Japanese video game publisher Square Enix to develop an online slot version of the classic arcade game Space Invaders.
The game will target UK and European players and will be available to customers via the OpenBet and GTS platforms later this year.