Acroud will pay approximately SEK47.3m (£4.1m/€4.7m/$5.6m) to purchase 100% of the shares in TheGamblingCabin, split equally as SEK23.6m in cash and SEK23.6m in newly issued Acroud shares.
The deal also includes a potential additional consideration based on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the period from 1 April 22 to 31 March 2023.
TheGamblingCabin operates as a software-based tipster service, also offering video content based around sports betting, poker and horse racing.
According to Acroud, the acquisition has a “clear strategic fit”, with addition of TheGamblingCabin set to strengthen its software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, as well as add YouTube and Twitch to it wider offering.
Acroud in February announced that it had signed a letter of intent to acquire a “software based tipster service”, with the affiliate business now confirming TheGamblingCabin as the identity of the previously unnamed entity.
The transaction is not subject to any further conditions and is completed as of today (15 April).
“This is the next step of the implementation of Acroud’s strategy to be the ‘Media House of the Future’ and a fast growing global player within Streaming and software solutions for the media affiliation industry,” Acroud president and chief executive Robert Andersson said.
TheGamblingCabin chief executive Bengt Sonnert added: “To become a part of Acroud was actually nothing that we even thought about initially, but the more we understood what Acroud is building it felt as an easy choice.
“They share our visions and provide us with new and greater possibilities to bring our business to the next level.”
“The acquisition together with the other recent acquisitions are together considered transformative and additive for each other,” Andersson said. “We are building a company where all parts complement each other.”
The charity submitted written evidence to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) consultation on the Gambling Act, emphasising the importance of education about gambling-related harm.
In particular, YGAM called for increased long-term funding for research, education and treatment, including the introduction of a statutory levy for licensees, something GambleAware also called for in its response. The group also called for “meaningful engagement from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education”.
The charity added that it firmly believes gambling addiction should be treated on the same level as other public health issues such as alcohol and drugs.
YGAM’s marketing and communications manager James Matthewson said: “The Gambling Act Review presents a much-needed opportunity for the regulation to catch up but also an opportunity to demonstrate the ongoing progress being made to educate and safeguard future generations.
“This review will scrutinise all aspects of regulation and, as an education charity, we do not claim to have the expertise to contribute to most of these intricate policy decisions.
“We believe keeping our young people safe should be the key focus of any outcomes from this review. Prevention is a better solution than treatment and we want Government to recognise that education has a vital role to play.”
The bill – which will now move to the House – would permit casino games including slot machines, historical horse racing machines, video lottery terminals and table games such as poker, baccarat, roulette and blackjack at one of six locations in the state.
These six locations are in the counties of DeKalb, Jackson , Macon, Greene, Houston and Mobile.
The finalised acquisition will see the Central Park stadium join ARC’s growing list of greyhound stadia in Newcastle, Nottingham, Sunderland and Perry Barr. ARC also operates sixteen racecourses.
“We are delighted to have reached agreement with Cearnsport Limited, and to welcome Central Park into the ARC group of venues,” said ARC director of media and technology, Mark Kingston.
“We are incredibly grateful to Roger Cearns, whose knowledge and expertise will be hugely valuable to the business during an upcoming transitional period.”
Cearns, a promoter at Central Park, will see the business through the acquisition.
“I have, for some time now, thought that after 60 years connected to greyhound stadiums and 23 years at Central Park that the time is right for me to retire for younger people to take charge and to secure a sound future for Central Park, its trainers and employees,” said Cearns.
“Having closely investigated all possibilities I consider that ARC, who are acknowledged leaders in this field, operating over 20 venues, are the best option to achieve that.”
Niner holds previous experience at Betgenius, Marathonbet, Oulala Games, and was most recently at start-up platform provider Atlas IAC as commercial director.
PandaScore said Niner’s knowledge and experience cover all gaming verticals, from sports to casino and beyond, and will play a significant role in driving growth by securing new client partnerships.
The supplier said that he will build on his knowledge and experience to onboard new clients and partners, and establish a sustainable platform for growth and long-term success. He will also be responsible for building out the company’s sales team as part of its wider expansion plans.
Flavien Guillocheau, chief executive at PandaScore, said: “I would like to welcome Oliver to the team and look forward to working closely with him as we continue to position PandaScore as the number one esports data and odds provider for the global online gambling industry.”
“Oliver has the talent and the experience required to ensure operators are aware of our market-leading products and services and to manage them from signing on the dotted line to integrating and launching our data feeds and odds. This makes him a great addition to the team.”
Niner added: “I am incredibly excited to have joined PandaScore at what is a pivotal moment in the company’s journey. They have already assembled a great team and I am honoured to now join their ranks and to lead sales activity and growth.”
Under the multi-year partnership, Genius and B.League agree to provide Japanese basketball fans, administrators, coaches and players with access to live data and video insights from over 1,000 games a season from the league’s top two divisions: B1 and B2.
In addition, Genius has been granted the exclusive rights to capture, manage and distribute B.League’s official data and video content to its global network of sportsbook partners, while its Bet Monitoring System will help to safeguard Japanese basketball from the threats of match-fixing and betting-related corruption.
To help protect the value and integrity of its official data, Genius said it has launched a new rights enforcement programme with B.League, removing unauthorised data collectors from the games.
Advanced play-by-play statistics will be captured by Fiba LiveStats, the data collection tool formed by Genius Sports in partnership with the International Basketball Federation (Fiba).
The statistics will help to power box scores, shot charts and data-driven analytics tools, Genius said. B.League’s official data will also supply broadcast and media partners with fast and accurate statistics to enhance the fan experience across multiple platforms.
Genius’ live streaming solution, GeniusLive, will broadcast B2 games, in a process driven by automated streaming production and distribution through the use of artificial intelligence.
“We are delighted to partner with Genius Sports and with the technology they provide, will be able to enhance fans’ experience across digital platforms worldwide, while providing new insights to coaches and players and raising the integrity of our league,” B.League chairman Shinji Shimada said.
Thomas Klingebiel, commercial director for Asia-Pacific at Genius Sports, added: “Amid the huge challenges that sports have faced over the last 12 months, rights holders are looking for innovative platforms to reconnect with fans and generate new revenue streams.”
“Together, Fiba LiveStats and GeniusLive will enable the B.League to control its live data and video content, transforming how audiences around the world interact with every play.”
Last week, Genius announced it would bring its full portfolio of products under the single Genius Sports brand, ahead of its listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
This meant discontinuing the supplier’s legacy Betgenius and Genius Sports Media brands.
The supplier is expected to trade on the NYSE soon, after announcing its plan to go public with an enterprise value of $1.5bn (£1.09bn/€1.25bn) in October last year.
In his new role, Ives will be responsible for increasing brand awareness and sales predominantly in the North American market, while he will also work with a global sales team.
Ives will also support Continent 8’s efforts to expand into new sectors such as financial services and healthcare, as part of wider growth plans for the business.
He joins the provider from Rapid Scale, where he was cloud services consultant, and has also had spells with technology businesses such as Navisite and Softchoice.
“The last five or six years of my career have been devoted to helping customers cut through the noise of complex technology decisions that come with regulation, compliance and data security,” Ives said.
“This puts me in a strong position to help online gambling companies find the solutions that best meet their needs as the US market continues to grow.”
Continent 8’s managing director for the Americas, Nick Nally, added: “We connect, manage and secure a vital part of any online gambling operation whether for a European company looking to enter the US market or an American company making a play online for the first time via over 60 connected locations.
“In Chad we have someone with unrivalled understanding and experience who will undoubtedly be able to drive brand awareness and also help us enter new sectors and markets.”
Kaizen Gaming will have access to GiG Comply, a marketing compliance solution that allows operators to set-up their own criteria and checklist parameters to scan and check affiliate websites for content.
GiG Comply can be used to ensure brands are operating in line with regulatory requirements across multiple jurisdictions, covering market-specific legislation and advertising standards.
“Compliance is not just a buzzword; working in a transparent way in accordance with local gaming legislation is a strategic pillar for Kaizen Gaming,” Kaizen Gaming’s head of affiliates Claus Jansson said.
“Entering into new markets and experiencing big growth in our existing ones, GiG Comply enables us to work proactively with the affiliates and maintain the overview of how we are promoted at the same time.”
GiG chief marketing officer Jonas Warrer added: “We’re happy to have partnered with Kaizen, It’s great to see a fresh and dynamic company placing responsible marketing at the forefront of their business.
“We look forward to supporting them with their marketing compliance efforts with GiG Comply, which will help to ensure they remain in control of all of their affiliate marketing and protect their reputation as a responsible, leading GameTech company in Europe.”
The committee will be chaired by 888’s non-executive chairman Jon Mendelsohn. Senior independent director Anne de Kerckhove and non-executive director Mark Summerfield have also been appointed as committee members.
“As a board, we are committed to ensuring that issues such as safer gambling, the climate change agenda, diversity and inclusion, and community engagement are consistently incorporated into the Group’s strategy and decision making.” Mendelsohn said.
“The creation of this committee demonstrates 888’s firm commitment to continuous ESG improvements and ensuring sustainable and ethical best practice across the Group’s activities.”
888 previously addressed social initiatives with the launch of its Control Center, an interface that allows players to monitor their play on 888’s igaming sites,
There is a brutality to corporate life. Since late 2017, Catena Media has had in total five permanent and interim chief executives. The latest to take up the reins is Michael Daly (below right) who came to the post after the resignation of Per Hellberg.
Such was the swiftness of Hellberg’s defenestration that board member Göran Blomberg took up as interim chief executive for a fortnight while the board undertook a brief search. They quickly plumped for Daly who until then was serving as the managing director of Catena Media’s US operations.
The high turnover at the top might be said to be down, at least in some part, to indigestion. Between 2014 and late 2018, Catena Media undertook more than 30 buyouts at a rate of almost one per month. As the company led the charge in gaming affiliate M&A, revenues ballooned from around €2m in early 2015 to a peak of €27.8m in the second quarter of last year.
Michael Daly, Catena Media
Growing pains were only to be expected when a company expands at such breakneck speed, not least because for all the revenue growth, the buying spree was financed by debt. Even as the company hit its revenue peak in the middle of last year, it was forced to go to shareholders with a hybrid rights issue of securities and warrants which raised a total SEK684m (around €67m).
The proceeds from this enabled the company to pay off €49.5m of an outstanding €150m bond that had been due for repayment in May. It was also able to renegotiate the repayment of the remainder for another year.
The rights issue gives the new CEO some breathing space. For all that Catena Media hit a revenue high point in the second quarter of last year, it has somewhat plateaued for the past two or more years. Its previous quarterly revenue high came in the third quarter of 2018 and on the headline numbers (revenues, EBITDA, NDCs) it has now been overtaken as the leading listed affiliate by major rival Better Collective.
Meanwhile, although Catena’s adjusted EBITDA has been reasonably steady, pre-tax profits have been patchier. In the last quarter of 2019, for instance, it was forced to write down €32.1m on the value of various previously acquired assets, causing a quarterly €32.2m pre-tax loss.
The reassessment of the worth of some of its acquisitions is ongoing. Before Daly took up his post the board appointed McKinsey to take a look at further underperforming parts of the business. In his debut presentation to investors unveiling the company’s fourth-quarter numbers, Daly spoke about the 15% of the business that had shown “no growth” and speaking to iGB, he says that turning that around is “the first challenge.”
“We want to be able to focus the business and the teams involved on growth,” he says. “There is a lot of growth out there in the affiliate gaming sector.”
Towards the end of his tenure Hellberg had taken to describing the European parts of Catena’s business as the “legacy” element, with all that seemed to indicate with regard to priorities. Indeed, the word appears in the 4Q20 introductory statement from Blomberg.
But Daly wants ‘legacy’ banished from Catena’s corporate vocabulary. “I want to avoid using the word,” he says. “That implicitly says, to me, that something is declining and dying. Instead, I would rather look at why it is an area is not performing. Maybe it is an acquisition where we didn’t pay enough attention on the integration or where the teams involved didn’t have proper performance guidance.”
Implicit here is the admission that Catena Media’s execution post-buyout may not have always been up to scratch, particularly with buyout piled on top of buyout. “Maybe we did take on too many acquisitions at once a few years ago,” he says. “Maybe we spent too much time only focused on the bigger products. Regardless, it is now about revamping the entire inventory.”
That revamp involves reinvigorating the various teams at Catena, incentivising them by granting more autonomy, greater responsibility and differing rewards. “It is all of those things,” Daly says. “Each set of people might be incentivised differently, depending on where their focus is on the business. For some it could be about more content flow or the optimisation of the site funnel. For others it is also about maximising the deals we have with operators. This is all very multifunctional but a lot of it is about empowerment.”
Coming to America
As mentioned, Daly takes over as CEO after having lately overseen the rise of Catena Media’s US-focused business. The company may have somewhat lucked into the US – when it bought the PlayNJ assets in December 2016 the PASPA repeal decision was still 18 months away – but Daly and Catena have certainly played the hand that was dealt well enough.
The company is, by its own estimation, now the leading gambling-related affiliate in the regulating sports betting and igaming space in the US. By the end of the fourth quarter, the US was worth 30% of total revenues of €26.6m or circa €8m, representing year-on-year growth of 72%.
That growth continued into the early months of 2021 with the market openings in Michigan and Virginia driving 58% year-on-year revenue growth for the company as a whole in January. With the sporting schedule continuing to be friendly for the rest of the quarter, it seems likely the US operation will help Catena Media to break the cycle of circa €26m revenue quarters in the first three months of 2021.
The figures will be helped by the structure of Catena’s US business where revenue is dominated by cost per acquisition (CPA) as opposed to the revenue-share arrangements more prevalent in Europe. The prevalence of CPA comes down to operator preference. Catena’s clients in the US tend to have existing customer loyalty schemes or player databases – and also capability. “The multi-state regulatory landscape makes it difficult to run revenue share for many of them and for us also,” Daly says.
The extent of CPA revenues in the US also creates its own (nice-to-have) issues as debuting states see what Daly calls a “launch bubble” as Catena reaps the benefits from the first onrush of new players.
“CPAs put cash in hand early,” says Daly. “Catena can use that cash today to invest in the future. Michigan, for instance, was a very successful launch, thankfully, because we were there so early. To pay for that, you needed the infrastructure and the cash.”
Sustainability of revenues will come from a mix of continued state-by-state sports betting openings, moves to add online gaming to the mix where it isn’t already a factor, and similarly moves to add mobile betting to states such as New York where sports betting is currently land-based only.
“It’s a multifaceted picture,” says Daly. “Yes, the available player volume will decrease in current sports states but as the marketable case decreases, the operators are suffering the same thing. They need new players in that quarter, so we become more important as these markets change. We can deliver that player and we only charge them when they turn up.”
The old world
Catena Media is on a different journey in Europe. Daly is keen to suggest that the lessons from wherever Catena Media operates can be applied in all markets, whether that is the US, Europe, Latin America or Japan.
In Europe, along with the rest of the sector, Catena Media faces the prospect later this year of the opening of the new German regulated regime for online casino and towards the end of the year the regulated market in the Netherlands. “While in the US we are looking at market entries, in Europe some markets might be seen as an opportunity for re-entry, such as Germany,” he says. “The markets are shifting to almost-new models with new operators and new ways to market to customers.”
It is about more than simply altering the product to suit the new regulatory boundaries. “It’s as much about changing the mindset,” he suggests. “We have a lot of talented people and they will have the answers. But we have to change the philosophy of how our business is structured. There is the consumer, the operator and then our company, likely in that order of importance. And that is how I believe we need to think.”
More than that, Daly hopes to instil in his teams a self-solving ability when it comes to servicing the needs of the clients. “We also have to respond to the operators and they don’t operate one model across all their businesses,” he adds. “While many of our clients are global, how they work in differing jurisdictions and markets can vary a lot. We need to respect that and be agile enough to support it.”
Part of the response involves paid media. In recent years, Catena’s reliance on paid media for a proportion of its revenue diminished to the point in the second quarter of last year that it contributed only 5.4% of total revenues or €1.5m. However, the fourth quarter saw something of a revival with paid media revenue rising 20% year-on-year to €2.5m. Not coincidentally, perhaps, this revival comes at the same time that Better Collective has greatly enhanced its own claims in the paid media arena with the acquisition of Atemi Group.
Daly says that while paid media shouldn’t be the largest segment of Catena’s business, it needs to be part of the mix. “My objective is for organic [SEO] to be the largest portion of the business,” he says. “That is where the strongest margins come from. But paid media is something that we should definitely have in our toolbox.”
The explanation for the hesitancy is clear – he doesn’t want Catena to be competing with its own customers on search terms. “They can spend more on PPC than we can in part because we are an intermediary,” he points out. “But at the same time, it is definitely an area where we should be looking for where there are opportunities.”
This, he says, is Catena’s job. “All we do is find players for operators and then earn revenues off those players. We have more time in the day to focus on these things so there are elements of paid media we should be able to focus on and do better than anyone else, including operators.”
As he concludes, “I maybe be biased but I think we have the best sites and teams to take advantage of this, in the short and long game.” Catena will be hoping it has found a CEO who will stick around at the top for long enough to find out if that is true.
