Monthly Archives: May 2015

Merkur Gaming CEO Jens Halle dies suddenly of chest infection

Jens Halle, the managing director of German gaming device maker Merkur Gaming, has died.

On Thursday, Merkur Gaming’s parent company Gauselmann Group announced that Halle had died “suddenly and unexpectedly” on Wednesday in a Florida hospital. Unconfirmed reports said the 58-year-old Halle took ill with a chest infection before being admitted to hospital on Wednesday. Halle is survived by his wife Marietta and his son Jordi, who attends university in the United States.

Halle was a longtime industry veteran, having held positions with Bally Technologies before moving to Austria’s Novomatic Group, where he stayed for 15 years, eventually rising to CEO of Novomatic’s American sales division. This January, Halle was appointed CEO of Merkur, the Gauselmann Group’s international sales subsidiary. Halle had been focused on expanding Gauselmann’s presence in the Latin American gaming industry.

The Gauselmann Group released a statement expressing its “great sadness” at Halle’s untimely death and extended their “deepest sympathy” to Halle’s family. Gauselmann CEO Paul Gauselmann said Halle has distinguished himself not only by his commitment to excellence, “but also through this endearing and oopen manner in dealing with customers and colleagues. We will honor his memory.”

Bwin.party poker revenue falls one-third, acquisition decision within “weeks”

UK-listed online gambling operator Bwin.party digital entertainment says revenue fell 6% in Q1 as poker revenue tumbled nearly one-third.

Revenue in the three months ending March 31 was €155.3m, but Bwin.party CEO Norbert Teufelberger (pictured) chose to look on the bright side, saying this was an improvement of 6% from Q4 2014 and thus proof that their efforts to right the sinking ship are paying off. In particular, Bwin.party pointed to its oft-derided mobile channel, which saw its share of overall revenue rise to 30% from just 17% in the same period last year.

Sports betting handle rose 9% but those infamous punter-friendly results ate into margins, leaving sports revenue down 10% to €58m. Mobile wagering accounted for 41% of sports revenue, up from 28% last year. However, daily average player ranks fell 14% and real-money signups fell 10%.

Casino and other games handle rose 1% but lower VIP activity and new value added taxes pushed revenue down 11% to €46.8m. Mobile’s share of the casino pie improved 12 points to 21% but daily average players were flat and real-money signups fell 29%.

Okada sells entire Manila land stake to local hotel operator

Okada Universal Entertainment Corp has sold its entire 40% stake in Eagle II Holdco Inc. to All Seasons Hotels & Resorts Corp. for $2.9 million.

According to a filing with the Japanese Stock Exchange, Universal Entertainment Corp has completed the sale in January. All Seasons is owned by Antonio Cojuangco, a Filipino businessman and relative of the country’s president.

“If true, they will be able to address the issue of the nationality problem,” PAGOR President Jorge Sarmiento told Reuters, adding that the regulator had yet to receive official confirmation of the sale.

The sale would resolve a potential legal as local law prevents foreign firms from owning over 40% of land and in 2012 and a legal opinion by the justice department unit said that Universal own more than the limit.

Zimbabwe blocks new betting licenses

Zimbabwe has stopped giving out betting licenses in the southern African nation on Tuesday to limit the surge of gambling on sports and lotteries.

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Ziyambi Ziyambi told Bloomberg that betting needs to be under control, that people are betting everywhere, and that there are too many operators offering services.

According to economist Prosper Chitambara of Labour Economic and Development Institute Research of Zimbabwe, out of the 14m population about 90% are either unemployed or underemployed.

In three months, up until March, about 1000 jobs were eliminated at 76 companies and last year 7000 people lost their jobs, according to the country’s Retrenchment Board

NYX Gaming Group acquires Game360 to enter Italian market

NYX Gaming Group has confirmed its acquisition of Game360’s entire share via cash purchase, increasing its presence to the regulated Italian market.

Game360 designs, develops, markets and distributes online gaming content with a focus on native and HTML5 mobile formats and sports betting software solutions to over a dozen leading operators in Italy.

Through the Game360 acquisition, NYX will leverage its ability to deliver its portfolio of existing certified casino content to these customers and also distribute the games developed by Game360 to its international client base.

In addition to increase global reach to Italy, NYX will also acquire a local presence in Rome, strengthening its core operations and leadership position in the content development space.

Intralot seeks Greek national lottery

Greek gaming technology firm Intralot has made a proposal to Greece’s Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis to create a national lottery in the country.

Greek betting operator OPAP holds a monopoly on the Greek gambling market, and in 2013, the Greek government sold its 33% OPAP stake to investment group Emma Delta for €652m.

According to Intralot Chairman Socrates Kokkalis during the company’s annual general meeting in Athens, a national lottery should be established upon the announcement of an international tender by the state, should be organized and run by the new Hellenic Gaming Commission (HGC) and that should be restructured and operate independently and not in favor of the current private monopoly.

“The lottery may be owned exclusively by the state, or co-owned by the state and insurance funds or it may even be built on a public-private partnership. The management of the lottery ought to be awarded to an established and globally recognized company in the sector,” said Kokkalis “According to industry estimates internationally, the fee for the concession of such a license may range from €100m to €250m for a period of 10-20 years, while the annual revenues for the state could amount to as much as €500m to €600m.”

Becky’s Affiliated: XLMedia’s Ory Weihs on how going public has transformed his business

Ory Weihs, the CEO of XLMedia, is one of my oldest friends in iGaming and also one of the most successful affiliates in our industry.  Since 2003, Weihs’ business has grown from a robust network of affiliate sites to a full service digital advertising company, one of the first of its kind to go public.

Spending time with Weihs is always inspiring as his drive to constantly grow and develop his business is contagious and it’s apparent going public was the right decision for him.  When you’re as driven as Weihs, there is nothing better than taking on a good challenge like he has done- here is his story on going public and how things are looking for XLMedia one year later.

Let’s begin by talking about this big move you made, by going public – why did you actually decide to make that huge jump – it’s a huge accomplishment.

We’ve been running for quite a long time.  I’ve been doing this since 2003 in some way or the other and we’ve been growing pretty constantly since 2004 or 5.  The business reached a point where it was working with many countries and many verticals, using a lot of technology.  We felt there was an opportunity if went out and raised some more money, we can really expedite the process and do multi-vertical, multi-countries and invest more in technology.

Nio enters into strategic partnership for iGamingCloud

Valetta, May 20, 2015: Gaming Innovation Group (GIG) and Optimizer invest (OPT) have signed a strategic partnership with the ambition to create a leading cloud services company for iGaming. The partnership will allow a further development of GIG’s iGamingCloud software platform and a ramp up of its rapidly expanding Cloud offering.

Optimizer Invest will acquire 10 percent of the shares in GIG’s subsidiary iGamingCloud (iGC) for a consideration of EUR 1 million. The parties have a mutual right to convert the investment into NIO shares in 2017 or 2018 based on the relative performance of iGC compared to Nio/GIG in 2017 and the share price at that time.  The transaction is expected to be completed early June 2015. The EUR 1 million will be allocated iGC to further scale the company.

“We see the partnership with Optimzer as a strong evidence of the significant industry interest in the iGaming Cloud platform and the position iGC is about to take in this growth market.  Through this strategic partnership we will step up development and marketing efforts related to iGamingCloud”, says managing director Robin Reed of Gaming Innovation Group Optimizer Invest is a renowned industrial investor within the iGaming space and are currently the largest shareholder in operator BetIt Group and performance marketing firm Catena Media. The agreement will see Optimizer founders Andre Lavold, Henrik Peerson, and Mikael Harstad, contribute to the continued upscale and business development of iGC, through a consultancy agreement and with a place in the board of iGC.

Gaming Innovation Group (GIG) launched iGamingCloud (iGC) to the wider gaming industry in February, and have since signed its first external customer and picked up interest from more than 30 potential clients whom have showed interest in the use of the cloud based iGC services to enable and power their gaming operations.