Tag: UK

Pragmatic Play, a leading content provider to the iGaming industry, has launched its complete slot portfolio with the global operator giant, bet365. 

The important milestone deal sees bet365 customers gain access to award-winning titles such as Gates of Olympus™ and Wolf Gold™, as well as latest releases Drill That Gold™ and Chicken Chase™.  

In addition, bet365 will participate in the hugely popular Drops and Wins promotion, which sees Pragmatic Play give away £1,000,000 a month to players through its operator network across both its slots and Live Casino offerings. 

The deal will see Pragmatic Play further strengthen its footprint in the United Kingdom regulated market, as well as many other key territories. 

It comes off the back of a number of major partnerships agreed by the supplier in recent months, including 888casino and Romanian market leader Superbet. 

Julian Jarvis, CEO at Pragmatic Play, said: “bet365 is a brand that needs no introduction. As the largest operator in our industry, taking our slots live with them is a hugely important moment for us as we continue to expand. 

“We pride ourselves on our premium, multi-vertical offering and this deal gives us significant scope to grow together with bet365.” 

Playtech and Paysafe extend collaboration in the UK and Europe following success across multiple US states

Paysafe, a leading specialised payments platform,  announces a new global partnership with Playtech, the world’s leading gambling technology company. The new agreement represents the extension of an existing partnership between the two companies into the UK and Europe from the US, where Playtech offers Paysafe’s leading payment solutions to iGaming operator customers through its technology platform.

Through a single, global streamlined integration with Paysafe’s API, operators in the UK and Europe will now also be able to leverage Playtech’s iGaming PAM, Information Management Solution (IMS) platform to access a range of Paysafe’s payment solutions, starting with payment acquiring and card processing, with Paysafe’s digital wallet services set to follow. The integration helps to maximise consumer choice by providing players with all the ways they want to pay when betting online.

The partnership extension follows Paysafe and Playtech’s successful US integration with betPARX®.  Paysafe has powered the gaming operator’s traditional and alternative payment solutions for its iGaming brand Play Gun Lake in Michigan since Q2 2021 and, from Q1 2022, for its betPARX iGaming and sportsbook app for both Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Both founded in the late 1990s, Paysafe and Playtech bring together a combined 40+ years of industry experience and a deep understanding of iGaming regulation across audiences and markets. With a technology-focused heritage, the two companies are focused on driving new innovations which offer the ultimate player experience and are designed to support the growth of partner businesses.

Paulette Rowe, CEO of Integrated and Ecommerce Solutions at Paysafe, said: “Playtech is an exciting global gaming brand committed to offering its operators a frictionless payments experience. We’ve seen great success in the roll-out of our collaboration across multiple US state markets and are delighted to be extending this into the UK and Europe via the same, single technology integration. Bringing together our respective capabilities and deep expertise and understanding of the international iGaming, technology and payments industries represents an incredibly powerful combination, and I am looking forward to helping the Playtech team grow their business further in new European markets.”

Shimon Akad, Chief Operating Officer at Playtech, added: “Offering our iGaming partners market-leading technologies that deliver the most seamless and engaging experience to their customers is absolutely central to our strategy at Playtech. Payments plays an important role in delivering the ultimate player journey and requires an experienced team with expert knowledge, which is where Paysafe comes in as the ideal partner for us. We are extremely happy with the progress of our relationship in the US and are truly excited about what we can achieve together in the UK and Europe.”

Provider of automated personalised content for iGaming and casino operators NowBetNow, has been shortlisted for Marketing & PR Supplier of the Year Award in the EGR B2B Awards 2022.

This award honours marketing service suppliers which enable innovative, multi-channel marketing and advertising strategies and technologies which boost customer acquisition and retention for operators across the iGaming world.

The EGR B2B Awards ceremony, which take place on 15th June this year at The Brewery in London, celebrates the very best service providers within the iGaming industry including betting and gaming software, networks, mobile, payments, recruitment, IT and infrastructure.

NowBetNow co-founder Stewart Vassie has also been awarded a prestigious Landmark Award at ICE 2022 last month. ICE organisers’ Clarion Gaming recognised Stewart’s considerable contribution to the iGaming industry over more than a 20 year career in, most notably, conceptualising and creating the leading odds comparison site Oddschecker and trading automation software provider Botsphere, before co-founding NowBetNow in 2018.

NowBetNow provides technology which generates and displays dynamic live bet suggestions, offers dynamic prices, is personalisable and clickable straight through to betslip.

Before NowBetNow started developing its core offering back in 2018, operators had to write and design display content manually using tools like Photoshop. NowBetNow transformed that highly labour-intensive exercise, which tended to lead to creation of generic, long-term offers like ‘Bet £10 get £20’ or ‘Bet on this weekend’s football’, into something that is far more dynamic, personalised, and automatically built to meet user preferences.

NowBetNow’s technology makes it possible to have highly specific, fully-customised, real-time, live-priced content for multiple matches, markets and odds formats ongoing – all tailored to the preferences of the individual users receiving it, and in their preferred language for operators serving multiple territories.

NowBetNow is able to deliver volumes and varieties of betting content at scale. Today some of its operator customers are showing over 200,000 pieces of unique betting content per month across multiple channels.

NowBetNow is also able to deliver click through data on new offers and modules, enabling operators to apply this customer insight to fine tune campaigns to only use methods which generate maximum consumer engagement, boosting average revenue per player.

Sports Direct is opening a brand-new flagship store, in the heart of Birmingham, bringing a modern, innovative, and sleek experience to the city, following over £10m worth of investment.

Located on New Street and spanning four floors, the supercharged store will be the ultimate lifestyle destination for customers. Home of USC, GAME, Evans Cycles and a Belong esports arena all under one roof, Sports Direct Birmingham will combine interactive experiences and unrivalled product choice for customers, helping to champion the legend in everybody.

USC will have a dedicated area in-store, giving trend-focused customers the chance to shop the most iconic premium lifestyle brands in one space, whilst GAME and Belong will offer the latest games consoles and accessories alongside an enhanced gaming and social experience in the city centre. Evans Cycles will also offer a market-leading selection of bikes, parts, accessories, and clothing, together with a fully equipped bike workshop service.

State of the art store innovations include a bra studio, featuring a unique multi-brand bra finder tool designed to help women find the right bra for their sport; specialised sporting areas including a permanent golf putting green, running gait analysis, and Jordan basketball performance challenge, as well as a My ID Customisation area where customers can have products customised with limited edition designs.

The launch of the store also coincides with Sports Direct’s spring running campaign, ‘Get Set’, which seeks to provide a fresh perspective on the meaning of ‘fast’. In-store technology will bring to life the stories of real runners across the UK, showing it’s more than just PBs and distances covered – it’s about making running accessible for all.

Michael Murray, Chief Executive of Frasers Group, continues to be at the forefront of the brand’s monumental transformation and has been leading the development of Sports Direct’s strategy.

Speaking of the opening, Michael says: “As Sports Direct continues to evolve and expand, we’re excited to be opening our second flagship store in Birmingham. As one of the largest cities in the UK, Birmingham follows our first flagship in London and brings with it a significant investment into the city, alongside an unrivalled offering of sports and fashion under one roof.

“Sports starts at Sports Direct; and as the leading destination for sports and lifestyle, we work collaboratively alongside our brand partners such as Nike for Sports Direct and CP Company for USC, to inspire our consumers with the best product choices and experiences through our flagship stores.”

Birmingham is the second flagship location to open, following the success of Sports Direct’s first flagship on London’s Oxford Street, which reopened after an impressive £10M refurbishment last year. The ‘flagship’ strategy is an all-new proposition for Sports Direct, bringing the best of sports to the consumer with an unrivalled product choice and world-class experiences through Sports Direct’s new design and brand vision.

Sports Direct’s parent company Frasers Group is committed to raising the bar for retail with investment and expansion plans already announced for this year, with Sports Direct’s Manchester flagship set to open later this year.

Blueprint Operations, part of Merkur Group UK, has appointed experienced industry personalities Neil McCartney and Iain Graham.

Blueprint Operations, which has consolidated its position as the UK industry’s leading creator of low stake, low prize Cat C and B3 gaming entertainment has added two high profile and experienced names to its Sales and Account Management team. Joining Blueprint are the former Inspired machine specialists Neil McCartney who previously worked for Barcrest and Iain Graham whose CV also includes roles in both Gala and Ladbrokes. Neil assumes the title of Head of Corporate Accounts with Iain becoming Head of Business Development. Both report to Nicola Wallbank in her new post as Director of Sales and Account Management.

Expanding on the appointments Nicola Wallbank said: “First of all I am delighted to welcome two well known, highly respected and highly knowledgeable industry personalities to the team. Blueprint has enjoyed a really positive return to business post-Covid beginning with ACOS, which was followed by our hugely successful National Roadshow and most recently our showing at EAG in March. The response to our Buy Direct Campaign which we introduced to the market in November has been phenomenal and the appointments reflect our commitment to provide the very best levels of service to all of our growing customer base across all sectors.”

She added: “This is not a case of simply increasing the headcount: it’s about adding the sector-wide knowledge, experience and insight which enables us to help our customers maximise their Blueprint machine income.”

Gaming Innovation Group Inc. (GiG), has signed a head of terms agreement with a Tier 1 retail operator in the UK for the provision of its turnkey managed service solutions. The turnkey solution, powered by its leading technology and flexible architecture, includes the technical platform, fully managed services, gaming content, frontend development, CRM, compliance and marketing, all powered by GiG’s unique data and GiG Logic rules based solutions. GiG will provide its fully managed solution to operate the online casino as phase one with expansion into further verticals planned for the second phase of the partnership. Through GiG’s full turnkey managed service solution, the complexity of digitally transforming the retail business online is greatly reduced, whilst at the same time, reducing the operator’s cost of entry.

It is anticipated that the full contract will be signed during May or June and will be for an initial fixed period of 3 years with go-live projected to be in the second half of 2022 with an expected positive contribution from Q4 2022 onwards. The UK’s online casino market is one of the largest globally, both parties are excited to attack the market with force with a strong retail brand, quality of product with focus on user experience, retail to online conversion and the highest standards of responsible gaming and customer support.

Richard Brown, CEO of GiG, said: “I am extremely excited to partner with a prominent operator within the land-based industry that shares our values on responsible gaming, CSR and passion about the power of embracing digital transformation. We see great potential in the UK, particularly when we can harness ‘brand equity’ and the retail footprint that the partner holds with our omnichannel solutions. We look forward to working closely with their team to maximise their potential through a successful digital transformation and anticipate this to become a significant and high-value client for GiG.T his type of deal is directly in our ‘wheelhouse’, helping land-based operators digitally transform and showcase our product in the UK market”