Month: May 2022

In his role, which he begins with immediate effect, Robertson will work with Genius Sports’ business advisory council, helping to identify strategic development opportunities and utilise his previous experience.

Before his new appointment, Robertson took on the role of Minister of Sport and the London Olympics in 2010. Following this he became Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where he was responsible for the Middle East, North Africa and counter-terrorism.

Robertson left politics in 2015 and is currently chairman of National Lottery operator Camelot and the British Olympic Association.

“I am delighted to be taking on this new role at Genius Sports and look forward to working with the management team to build a company that is at the forefront of sports data and technology,” he said. “Now more than ever, the capture, analysis and commercialisation of live sports data is a key growth driver for broadcast, media and regulated betting sectors.”

“Furthermore, I hope that my independence, global experience and commercial expertise will help Genius Sports make the most of this exciting new opportunity.”

Matt Locke, CEO of Genius Sports, said that Robertson will improve the company’s global standing.

“We are thrilled with the appointment of Sir Hugh. For over twenty years, he has worked tirelessly for British sport and brings extensive commercial and stakeholder expertise to help drive the health and future growth of our company,” said Locke.

“Sir Hugh’s unique expertise and experience will be invaluable to positioning Genius as the global leader in sports data and technology.”

Conway moves into his new role having previously served as head of racing trading at SIS and will oversee the full operation of the esports-focused SIS Competitive Gaming division.

SIS said the business unit has been built specifically for sportsbooks, allowing bettors to watch and bet on live broadcasts of head-to-head events between gamers on esports titles such as CS:GO, as well as Ebasketball and Esoccer.

Tracey, who previously served as racing trading manager for SIS, will replace Conway. His new remit will be to continue the development of SIS’ trading offering, while also overseeing risk management for operators of all sizes.

Tracey has been with SIS for five years, starting out as lead horse racing trader. Prior to this, he spent eight years with Sporting Index.

“These new appointments serve to further strengthen our trading and competitive gaming products, which are proving to be very popular with an increasing number of operator partners internationally,” SIS product director Conleth Byrne said.

“The expertise and knowledge that both Adam and Aiden bring to their respective roles will provide both SIS and our partners with major benefits as we continue to grow.”

The double appointment comes after SIS in March expanded its commercial team with three appointments to new head of sales roles.

Joe Andrews was promoted to head of sales for Africa, while Angel Calderon took on the position of head of sales for Latin America and Iberia, and Helen Ridley moved into a similar role to lead the UK and European team.

SIS in March also announced Julian Wheeler as its new chief technology officer.

The new version, which was first announced in March, has been designed to be more user-friendly, as well as offer easier access to guidance and information on gambling problems.

Other features on the updated Spelpaus.se website, which went live today (31 May), include an option for players to extend a period of self-exclusion. 

Spelinspektionen said users already registered with Spelpaus.se will not be affected by the update, while the way licensees interact with Spelpaus.se, including checking against the list for self-excluded players, will remain the same.

Since launching three years ago, more than 75,000 Swedish consumers have signed up to self-exclude from gambling through Spelpaus.se.

“If you play too much and for more money than you can afford, it is important to be able to easily and quickly break that pattern and take a break from playing,” Spelinspektionen director general Camilla Rosenberg said.

“Spelpaus.se does not solve a gambling addiction but can mean that you have time to reflect on your gambling habits and the opportunity to change them for the better or choose not to play again.”

In a trading update for the three months to 31 March, the gambling performance marketing group and digital marketing services provider recorded revenue of $19.6m, which was up 70% on the same period in 2021.

Gambling.com said growth came both organically and due to acquisitions over the course of the last year. While it did not give details of its different divisions and subsidiaries, the group has acquired both RotoWire and BonusFinder in the last year.

The group, which owns and operates more than 50 websites in seven languages across 15 national markets, also added that North American revenue grew by 544% year-on-year to $10.6m. During the quarter the business as a whole delivered 67,000 new depositing customers and launched in New York and Louisiana.

With cost of sales at $1.2m, the group made a gross profit of $18.4m. Sales and marketing expenses tripled to $7.4m compared to last year, while technology expenses and general and administrative doubled to $1.4m and $4.8m.

The group made an operating profit of $4.3m, which was down on the $5.2m made in Q1 2021. Despite the revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA was up by just 1% to $7.19m.

Elias Mark, chief financial officer of Gambling.com Group, said: “We saw our accelerated investments in the business during the second half of 2021 start to pay off, and grew revenue 70% to deliver the best quarterly performance in the group’s history.

“The record performance was driven by exceptionally strong growth in North America, particularly in New York, and very solid results in the UK and Ireland measured against our previous best quarter.

“Strong underlying organic growth is complemented by our recent acquisitions, which were all performing in-line with, or better than, our initial expectations. We continue to expect another record year for the Group and reiterate our full year guidance.”

Vieira joins Incentive Games having been headhunted from TVSquared, a specialist in cross-platform TV advertising management.

Vieira spent five years with TVSquared, first serving as a data scientist, before going on to become data scientist technology lead and later combining this role with senior data scientist.

Prior to his time with TVSquared, Vieira had a spell as a business intelligence engineer at African e-commerce platform Jumia Group.

“In a very short space of time Incentive Games has established itself as the global leader in the field of free to play games, and I’m hugely excited and intrigued to join a remarkable team,” Vieira said. 

“Their products are now generating huge amounts of incredibly rich data that are being harnessed to develop a phenomenal roadmap of upcoming products. The challenge of helping elevate those games to the next level was one I couldn’t resist.”

Incentive Games chief executive John Gordon added: “We’ve been aware of Tiago’s remarkable talents for a while now and have taken our time to get this key hire in place. 

“By the end of this year Incentive Games products will have over 100 million active monthly users and be generating many billions of data points, and we believe few companies in the industry have a deeper knowledge of customer behaviour in our space. 

“Whilst those learnings have already been used to improve game design and user experience, we’re now focusing on specific customer insights and state-of-the-art, real-time reporting advances that, we believe, will revolutionise the industry’s acquisition and retention strategies.”

Under the agreement, OlyBet will become an official partner of Real Betis across the Baltics region and work with the club on a range of marketing campaigns.

OlyBet said that its customers will also have the opportunity to engage with the club via live broadcasts, local events, social media and betting experiences.

The deal comes after OlyBet also recently brokered a number of other sport partnerships including with Italian Serie A football club ACF Fiorentina, as well as the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League in North America.

“Partnering with Olybet, the top sports betting brand in the region, provides a larger scale of digital platforms to engage fans and players and develop professional football as a great sports show,” Real Betis general business manager Ramón Alarcón said.

Real Betis finished fifth in the 2021-22 La Liga season and also won the Copa del Rey domestic knockout cup competition. 

NeoGames submitted its SEK4.3bn (£349.0m/€417.6m/$476.0m) bid to take over Aspire Global in January.

The acceptance period was originally supposed to end on 25 May 2022.

It was extended to give all shareholders the chance to accept NeoGames’ offer. The offer consists of a combination of cash for half of all Aspire Global shares at SEK111 per share and equity consideration for the remaining 50%, which would be made up of 7.6m newly issued NeoGames shares.

On 25 May over 45 million Aspire Global shares had been tendered in the offer, adding up to 98.2% of Aspire Global shares.

The settlement of these shares – where the cash will be exchanged – will take place on 14 June.

The settlement for shares accumulated between 25 May and 14 June will take place on 30 June.

NeoGames also announced that regulatory approvals from the Gibraltar Gambling Commission and the North Macedonia Competition Authority have been received, meaning that the conditions of the offer have been met.

However, Aspire Global must also “accelerate” its current incentive programs – meaning that all outstanding options, warrants and options issued are converted into no more than 828,094 shares – before the acceptance period ends to solidify the deal.

The deal, finalised following due diligence in line with the initial announcement last month, consisted of 2.5 million newly issued shares, issued at a price of SEK3.30 apiece. 

ReelNRG will continue to operate independently, with LL Lucky Games having noted a series of synergies in the form of cross-selling, cost optimisation and the possibility of sharing technology and licences in the future. 

Based in London, ReelNRG currently employs nine people, including eight developers at its development studio in Hyderabad, India.

The studio has developed and built its own technology, offering 46 games through licences issued by regulators in Great Britain, Malta and Gibraltar.

“This is a big step for Lucky Games where we consolidate our position as a truly independent gaming studio focused on the regulated markets,” LL Lucky Games chief executive Mads Jørgensen said.

“With another strategic acquisition, we are generating additional turnover through new revenue opportunities which will lead to the development of our profitability.

“The acquisition of ReelNRG secures key customer integrations and licenses and adds new casino games to our already strong product portfolio, along with our new development team in India. We are very excited and proud of the acquisition, and it is an honour to welcome them to Lucky Games.”

The three organisations will fill three new categories of associate membership that were introduced in September 2020.

CSCF Foundation for Sport Integrity was established to provide advice and education on integrity-related issues for stakeholders across the sport and governmental sectors. The organisation coordinates a number of projects including three ERASMUS+ of which GLMS has been a partner and also provided GLMS with a platform to interact directly and through its lotteries with the law enforcement and prosecutorial sectors.

“It has been enlightening for our country partners to engage with GLMS and with the GLMS lottery member at national level, resulting in concrete national actions,” CSCF director Norbert Rubicsek said. 

“Becoming an associate member can further strengthen our collaboration, in education and regulatory issues as well as building a stronger inter-stakeholder relationship, combining efforts and encouraging consistency across domains.”

The Hungarian Supervisory Authority for Regulatory Affairs (SARA) is the national authority responsible for authorisations and regulations in Hungary. It is the first gambling regulatory organisation to become an associate member of GLMS.

“We are glad that the GLMS has supported our authority’s application to become an associate member of GLMS,” SARA president Marcell Biró said. “This cooperation will contribute to our efforts as a regulatory authority to fight match-fixing via gaining information on the risks endangering the integrity of sports and on effective prevention tools.”

Meanwhile, the Greek National Platform aims to national coordinate competent bodies at national level, cooperate internationally and create a monitoring mechanism to ensure the implementation of the provisions set out in the Macolin Convention.

“Manipulation of sport competitions is a global threat for sport and its values. It is a threat that requires national and international coordination and cooperation for addressing it,” Greek secretary general of sport at the Ministry of Culture and Sport, George Mavrotas, said.

“During the last years Greece has taken significant steps for combating match-fixing, we strongly believe in value-based sport and this agreement between EPATHLA and GLMS, a leading partner in the field, is another step towards this direction. It is essential to join forces and exploit synergies in order to protect sport from the corrosive phenomena that devalue it.”

GLMS general secretary Luca Esposito added: “Exchanging information is paramount in the fight against manipulation of sports competitions, expanding our membership to include the growing stakeholders involved in the sports and sports betting community helps us in achieving our objective to preserve the integrity of sport.”

Confirmation of the three new associate members comes after GLMS earlier this month revealed it sent out 300 suspicious betting alerts and notifications to members during the first quarter of 2022, a small decrease on the same period last year.

Of these alerts in the three months to 31 March, 243 were raised before a sporting event, 12 during the match or game and the remaining 45 after the event had ended. The total was down from 323 in the same period last year.

EveryMatrix said the acquisition would strengthen its online-first OddsMatrix sports betting product with an advanced retail offering.

OddsMatrix will integrate Leapbit’s retail-focused software solution and other products such as virtual horse racing and lottery games.

Founded in 2018, Leapbit is a B2B sports betting supplier, employing a core team that was previously with Romanian bookmaker Superbet.

Leapbit’s development team will be merged with OddsMatrix’s existing organisation and continue to deliver software from its current base in Zagreb, Croatia. Leapbit’s leadership team will oversee the transition.

“OddsMatrix is one of the company’s three pillars and is growing at a tremendous rate already,” EveryMatrix chief executive Ebbe Groes said. “Retail is a big component of any comprehensive sports betting suite, and by integrating Leapbit’s technology, we can take OddsMatrix to new levels of complexity.

“We’ve been impressed by Leapbit’s technology and expert team, and we’re looking forward to growing OddsMatrix together by greatly expanding our addressable market.”

Leapbit co-founder and chief executive Božo Kekez added: “The past four years with Leapbit have been more fruitful than expected; we’ve done a lot of work in a short time frame and couldn’t be prouder of this outcome. 

“The team is eager to re-join a bigger company and work from the inside to push the boundaries of innovation within the sports betting software space.”