News in Brief: EveryMatrix launches mobile sportsbook; Passoker six-figure investment; Microgaming...
EveryMatrix is due to launch its new mobile sportsbook; Passoker receives "significant six-figure" investment.
Next week will see the launch of EveryMatrix‘s mobile sportsbook, which will feature live scores, statistics and sports news alerts. OddsMatrix will allow in-play betting on football, tennis and ice hockey matches, as well as other selected sporting events. As well as placing bets through the mobile application, bettors can check a list of the best bets they have placed and keep tabs on bets in progress.
Passoker has announced a “significant six-figure investment” from London-based investment company Venatus Interactive. After Venatus managing director Edward Pfeiffenberger witnessed Passoker win the Start-Up Launch pad award at the European iGaming Conference last year, the firm moved to buy 15% of HighSixes.com, Passoker’s holding company that will launch a real-money version in partnership with Victor Chandler next month.
Microgaming will launch a real-money mobile poker app in the first quarter of this year, and has announced plans to showcase the app at ICE next week. Modelled on the Flash platform Fast Track, it will be available for Microgaming operators to offer to all players who own Android v2.2 smartphones, and follows the company’s release of casino games for the same platform.
Former French monopoly PMU has revealed strong online growth for 2010 since France regulated egaming in June last year with a 39% rise in revenues to 928m (£783m). It said the launch of sports betting and poker had given it a 10% market share in sports betting and positioned it as a “key player” in French poker. In a statement it claims it to have a total of 500,000 customers, “strengthening its position as the number one betting site in France” and as one of the country’s “leading online brands”. The company grew its overall turnover by 2.6% t0 9.54bn.
Lawyers representing the Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA) in the long-running Kentucky domain-name case claimed this week that there is “no authority” for the attempts of the Commonwealth to seize the domain names of iMEGA members. “The idea that the Commonwealth may proceed civilly against internet domain names on the theory that they meet the criminal statutory definition of ‘gambling devices’ is simply not supported by the law,” wrote Jon Fleischaker, counsel for the association, according to reports on iMEGA’s official site.
Social gaming developer Zynga is set to launch a new rewards scheme for several of its games including its poker platform. The ‘rewardville’ system “ which also covers the popular FarmVille and MafiaWars games “ will allow users to accumulate reward points whenever they play and use the points to ‘buy’ in-game products.
Enetpulse has launched three new products aimed at enhancing its users’ sports betting experience. A live score and stats centre providing animation of key match incidents will be joined by a ‘Live Tips’ product, which supplies real-time bet prompts for both the pre-game and in-play markets. The third product is a “sports data widget service”, which allows operators to localise content from the Danish provider anywhere across their platform without the need for technical integration.
PayPoint.net has signed a deal to become the primary payment service provider for Stan James‘ online payments. The agreement will last for more than three years, with the Gibraltar-based bookmaker also taking up an option to implement PayPoint.net’s FraudGuard engine.
Neovia Financial has acquired Montreal-based rival online payments provider Optimal Payments for up to US$50m (£31.25m) in cash, shares, and vendor debt financing. As a result it has appointed Joel Leonoff to its board as an executive director where he will become co-CEO of the company alongside Mark Mayhew, Neovia’s current president and chief executive. Leonoff founded Optimal Payments, a business that processes more than US$2.5bn transactions annually.
Online gaming provider Edict Egaming has become the 23rd company to receive an Isle of Man gaming license. The German company will now launch its new online casino system.