Playtech Delivers 25% Revenue Growth in H1

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The governance of FTSE-listed Playtech has detailed a strong momentum to its first half of 2017, as the company secured vital renewals of Tier 1 contracts with operators including Sky Bet, Betfred and Paddy Power Betfair.

Updating the market, Playtech highlighted its proven multi-channel strategy, which had generated group revenues of €421.6 million, up 25% on the €337 million posted in the first half of 2016.

Aided by a strengthened commercial pipeline and strong KPI gains across its product portfolio, Playtech’s governance reported first-half EBITDA of €171 million, up 19% on the prior-year period. Net profit totalled €90 million.

Issuing a forward-looking statement, Playtech governance noted the firm’s strong “gross cash” position, which currently stands at more than €500 million as of June 30.

During the first half of 2017, Playtech focused on innovating its multi-channel assets, developing new product propositions for its live gaming division and further investing in product development to aid new asset integrations.

Further to its financial update, the group this week detailed that it had acquired B2B financial trading and risk management platform provider Alpha UK for $150 million.

The company has moved to form a new financial trading services division, TradeTech Group, which will be led by Ron Hoffman as chief executive.

Updating investors, a confident Alan Jackson, chairman of Playtech, commented on the H1 performance:

“The proven strength of the Playtech model was once again demonstrated with a strong H1 performance driven by both underlying growth and recent acquisitions. As always, Playtech’s performance has been converted into strong cash generation, enabling a 10% increase in the interim dividend, in line with the progressive dividend policy.”

“The first half of the year saw Playtech’s gaming division deliver strong growth with double-digit underlying growth and recent acquisitions integrated and performing in line with expectations.

“Playtech has also continued to execute on its industry leading omni-channel solution by deepening its offering in key verticals with the integration of Playtech BGT Sports creating a fully integrated best-in-class sports technology solution and the launch of the world’s largest live casino studio in Latvia, revolutionising the offering in a growing and dynamic channel.”

http://totallygaming.com/news/online/playtech-delivers-25-revenue-growth-h1

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Playtech to Acquire Assets from ACM Group

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Playtech has today (Wednesday) announced that it has agreed a deal to acquire technology, intellectual property and certain customer assets from ACM Group.

Under the deal, a team from ACM, known in the industry as ‘Alpha’, will join the TradeTech Group, while the brand TradeTech Alpha will also be created to deliver bespoke risk management and trading solutions to B2B customers.

In addition, the Playtech financials division will now be renamed as TradeTech Group, in order to better reflect the capabilities of the businesses within the division and align its brand recognition.

The total consideration for the agreement is capped at $150m (€127.6m), with Playtech to make a series of payments.

Consideration for the acquisition comprise an initial up-front payment of $5m (€4.3m); two staged payments based on 1 x EBITDA of both 2017 and 2018; contingent consideration based on 5.2 x EBITDA in 2019, minus the initial payment and 2017 and 2018 payments.

Ron Hoffman, chief executive of Playtech’s ‘TradeTech Group’ financials division, said: “This is a significant step in the evolution of TradeTech; the financial trading industry is driven by the core capabilities of platform technology, customer acquisition and retention, CRM management, and financial trading and risk management expertise.

“The acquisition of Alpha’s high-quality technology and teams of industry experts will significantly deepen our expertise in trading and risk management, allowing TradeTech Group to offer a full turnkey solution to B2B clients across the industry.”

Muhammad Al-Amin Rasoul, chief executive of Alpha, added: “This is a natural fit for Alpha; the strength of TradeTech Group’s management team and asset base will provide us with a platform to grow our offering with TradeTech Alpha.

“Not only does TradeTech offer everything that you need for a complete B2B solution for brokers, but you can get that solution from the most financially secure company in the industry.

“We could not be happier to join the family and start this next exciting chapter at TradeTech Group with the newly launched TradeTech Alpha brand.”

http://www.igamingbusiness.com/news/playtech-acquire-assets-acm-group

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Playtech’s Quickspin with a New Sticky Bandits Slot

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Playtech, through its recently acquired subsidiary Quickspin, decided to surprise its fans with a new slot game this summer. Sticky Bandits is the name of the game that will undoubtedly attract a lot of players in the upcoming period. It is a game with a Wild West theme, i.e. it is a spaghetti western to be more precise. The game has 5 reels and 30-paylines and it can be played with as little as 1p per two pay-lines, which sets the minimum stake at 15p, whereas the maximum stake is £30.

The game has a medium to high variance which means that you can’t expect to win too often, but the prizes are definitely worthy. The story revolves around a bunch of desperados who are trying to rob a train. You will see two guns set on top of the reels. The list of symbols includes classic high-card symbols including Jack, Queen, King and Ace, as well as a number of other theme symbols such as dynamites, coins, and the three desperados.

The lady desperado is the most valuable symbol, she pays 200 coins for a combination of 5 symbols on a pay-line. The game’s soundtrack is completely in accordance with the theme, it will remind of the iconic spaghetti films of the past. The game features not one, but two wild symbols, the train villains, each of which can substitute any other symbols. The wilds can occupy up to two total reels. The train plays the role of the scatter and it can only appear on the first reel.

The free spins bonus is activated when the scatter appears on the first reel, simultaneously with a wild on the second or the fourth reel and it that case the player wins 7 free spins. The wilds remain in place during all of the free spins. The maximum prize that can be won in this game is x739 the stake.

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Sky Betting & Gaming Renews Multi-Product Playtech Deal

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Long-term contract extends across Casino, Live Casino, Bingo

(PRESS RELEASE) London: July 4th 2017 – Sky Betting & Gaming has agreed a multi-product renewal with Playtech, the world’s leading Omni-channel gaming software, systems and services supplier.

The contract extends across an exclusive Playtech Casino, exclusive dedicated Live Casino environment, Bingo and dedicated Bingo game and network development.

The multi-product agreement highlights the huge strength of Playtech’s leading products and the relationship and trust that Playtech and Sky Betting & Gaming have established over the many years they have worked together.

Sky Betting & Gaming is a long-standing Playtech partner that has witnessed significant year-on-year growth within its gaming, live and bingo verticals as well as showing great innovation and success within its marketing of Playtech products.

Earlier this year this resulted in the operator winning Playtech’s inaugural Playtech Award that recognises and rewards marketing excellence and innovation across the Playtech Casino network of global licensees. As a result of its performance, excellence and uplift in Live, Sky Casino received the top prize of one month’s exclusivity on a new Playtech game as well as £50,000 in marketing budget contribution.

After several months of collaborative research, planning, user testing, development and a core focus on the customer journey, Playtech and Sky Betting & Gaming launched a state-of-the-art dedicated Live Casino environment in April this year in Playtech’s new studio in Riga – the largest purpose-built facility in the world. Sky Casino was the first brand to launch a dedicated offering within the new studio.

Playtech worked side-by-side with Sky Betting & Gaming to create a studio that delivered to Sky Casino’s proposition of ‘High Performance matters’ and ‘Man of Action’. To achieve this ultra-modern environment, Playtech custom designed a series of unique Sky Casino tables, re-designed its dealer uniforms to match the brief and created custom layouts and cards significantly enhancing the products and customer experience Sky Casino wanted to offer its players across all desktop and mobile devices.

Sky Casino’s main Roulette table, for example, has an integrated digital display around the original cloth design and includes a first-to-market Roulette wheel displaying the revolutions of the ball during each spin.

Mor Weizer, CEO, Playtech, said: “Over the years we have developed a fantastic relationship with Richard and his team and we’re delighted Sky Betting & Gaming has signed a long-term, multi-product extension that brings together one of the UK’s best-performing and fastest growing UK sports betting and gaming operators and the industry’s best-performing software and technology supplier and, in turn, secures both our future growth.

“This not only shows the huge strength our products have, but also the great trust and faith Sky Betting & Gaming has put in Playtech to deliver even greater results than it has already achieved. Sky Betting & Gaming is going from strength-to-strength and together I’m confident we can achieve many more years of great success,” added Weizer.

Richard Flint, CEO, Sky Betting & Gaming, said: “I’m delighted with the work that we’ve done with Playtech over the years and this new deal is a key part of our plans for continued growth across our biggest brands.”

https://www.playtech.com/news/latest_news_and_prs/sky_betting_gaming_renews_multi-product_playtech_deal

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Playtech BGT Sports Momentum Continues with BoyleSports Extension

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(PRESS RELEASE) 17th August 2017, London – Playtech BGT Sports (PBS), the leading provider of omni-channel sports betting solutions, has agreed a deal to extend distribution of its self-service betting terminals (SSBTs) with BoyleSports.

As part of the agreement, another 325 of the terminals will be deployed within the Irish operator’s 225-strong estate, doubling the number to over 1,000 in the last 12 months.

Individual shop SSBT density will increase once the additional terminals have been installed, with many of the operator’s best performing shops hosting in excess of five SSBTs as they look to build upon their operating objective to offer their customers an all-encompassing service through a variety of modern mediums.

Dr. Armin Sageder, CEO of Playtech BGT Sports, said: “Our partnership with BoyleSports has been very successful since our initial deployment, and our second extension to the deal this year proves the strength of the product for the Irish customer base.

“Many shops will host more than four terminals, which illustrates that customers are seeing the tangible benefits of the machines, which have been shown to greatly add incremental revenue and increased margins, without the threat of cannibalisation to the over-the-counter product.”

Jenna Boyle, Head of Retail at BoyleSports, said: “Customer feedback for the increased offering provided by PBS’ SSBTs has required us to greatly increase the number of them across our estate to keep up with demand.

They have helped us generate record-breaking SSBT football betting turnover, and the significant incremental revenue each one generates has led to us making the decision to further increase the average density in our shop in order to further enhance our market leading retail offering.”

This agreement comes just four months after a similar deal extension, which saw PBS provide an additional 200 terminals to BoyleSports.

https://calvinayre.com/2017/08/17/press-releases/playtech-bgt-sports-momentum-continues-boylesports-extension/

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Playtech BGT Sports Secures Betfred Contract Extension

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Agreement will see SSBTs installed across bookmaker’s entire retail estate

16th June 2017, London – Playtech BGT Sports (PBS), the leading provider of omni-channel sports betting solutions, has extended its Self Service Betting Terminals (SSBTs) agreement with Betfred to expand its coverage across the bookmaker’s entire retail estate.

As part of the deal, PBS will supply an additional 570 terminals to the UK bookmaker, which takes its total number to over 2,800 across its 1,700-strong estate.

The deployment of machines is expected to be completed before the start of the new football season in August.

In addition, PBS’ innovative mobile BetTracker product has also been released across the Betfred retail network.

The phone app allows customers to transfer their sports bets to their mobile devices after placing them in-shop, track their bets and cash out back to the terminal.

John Pettit, Managing Director for UK, Ireland, Asia, and Australia at Playtech BGT Sports, said:“We are thrilled Betfred has decided to extend its relationship with Playtech BGT Sports with the deployment of more machines across its entire retail estate. 

“Betfred is a very important partner for us and is one of the leading retail bookmakers in the UK, where SSBTs are increasingly significant to betting shop customers.

“The agreement underlines the strategic importance of our product to those operators wishing to grow incremental revenues.

“We are particularly delighted to see BetTracker released across Betfred’s retail network, marking a significant step in our ongoing mission to digitise the retail betting space.”

Mark Stebbings, Managing Director of Betfred Retail, said: “The growing popularity of SSBTs, our record-breaking football business and the growth in in-play turnover were the key reasons behind our decision to expand this service across all our betting shops. We’ve witnessed a growing trend towards the use of self-service terminals, so to expand them to our entire retail estate was the logical next step for us. Furthermore, the addition of BetTracker will prove to be an important tool for us in the crossover of retail and online customers.”  

https://www.playtech.com/news/latest_news_and_prs/playtech_bgt_sports_secures_betfred_contract_extension

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Coral’s Retail Arm Extends PBS Relationship

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Supplier rolls out software on more than 450 in-shop tablets

(PRESS RELEASE) 22nd June, 2017 – Playtech BGT Sports (PBS), the leading supplier of omni-channel sports betting technology, has successfully completed the deployment of its proprietary software onto more than 450 existing tablet-based betting terminals across the Coral estate.

The solution enables a seamless multi-channel experience for customers and is set to further improve the retail offering, with a prominent positioning in front of TVs, allowing for an improved in-play experience.

John Pettit, Playtech BGT Sport’s UK, Ireland and Australia Managing Director, said: “We are delighted to have supported Coral in extending their self-service estate with the roll-out of PBS software on Connect tablet-based terminals. This is also a huge vote of confidence from such a heavyweight retail operator.”

“Our terminals and software solutions are re-shaping the betting shop industry as bookmakers realise the benefits of digitising the retail space, both to their bottom line and their user experience.”

Richard Lang, Ladbrokes Coral’s Retail Commercial Director, said: “I’m very pleased to have agreed with PBS to extend our SSBT footprint across the Coral estate with the introduction of over 450 Connect tablets. This offering further enhances our retail offering, as well as supporting our multi-channel focus.

“We believe strongly in utilising best-in-class technologies and PBS deliver us the best digital, retail offering around, providing an improved experience for our sportsbook customers.”

PBS now provides terminals and software on more than 3,000 terminals within Coral’s retail stores, with its Connect customers also benefitting from exclusive offers on SSBTs, as well as being able to utilise live cash-out of retail bets across various devices.

https://www.playtech.com/news/latest_news_and_prs/coral_s_retail_arm_extends_pbs_relationship

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Playtech Agrees Caesars Entertainment EMEA Casino Management Deal

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Technology will link 178 tables and 427 electronic terminals

(PRESS RELEASE) London: June 12th 2017 – Playtech has signed a large-scale casino management system agreement with Caesars Entertainment EMEA across eight landmark UK properties including the world-famous Empire Casino in central London.

Playtech subsidiary IGS will replace Caesars’ legacy technology with its cutting-edge proprietary Neon Enterprise system that will give the casino group complete control across its entire operation that covers eight properties, 178 gaming tables and 427 electronic terminals in London, Mayfair and across its UK estate.

Playtech’s retail division, which includes IGS, is firmly established as the fastest-growing supplier of systems to land-based casinos.

Caesars’ primary driver behind changing its existing technology was two-fold; deploy Neon’s advanced player tracking features estate-wide while also making the most of the Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC) and Enhanced Due Diligence controls

IGS’s core product strategy roadmap and commitment to regular releases appealed to Caesars that required readily available access to the latest technology without the reliance on bespoke software and scheduled releases.

The project includes Neon Analytics and the recently released Neon CRM; both tightly integrated to the enterprise architecture in order to deliver targeted offers to players and measure the impact on bottom-line results.

Alex Oswald, CFO of Caesars Entertainment EMEA, said: “From my previous experience of using Neon – specifically Neon Analytics and the data it provides operators – I knew that it would make a significant impact if deployed within Caesars Entertainment properties.

“IGS’ approach to scoping the required system features and integrations – which are numerous within the estate – set them apart during partner evaluations.”

Martin Sykes, Managing Director of IGS, said: “We’re committed to the expansion of Neon Enterprise across the UK and bringing Caesars Entertainment EMEA on board cements our position as leaders in the market.

“By deploying regular, road-mapped changes to all customers, such as suspicious ticket-in, ticket-out (TITO) activity features in the spring release, we are able to move the whole customer base forward together.

“The specific strategy of focusing on compliance controls in the last 18 months has paid dividends and I look forward to working with Caesars in the coming years ahead.”  Sykes added.

https://www.playtech.com/news/latest_news_and_prs/playtech_agrees_caesars_entertainment_emea_casino_management_deal

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Go Back to the Future with Playtech’s New Hologram Wilds Slot

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  • Leading developer, Playtech launches Hologram Wilds online slot game.
  • New titles features classic fruit machine aesthetics and futuristic hologram touches

When it comes to online casino games developers, it’s fair to say that Playtech is among the most prolific. The company regularly launches slot titles that maintain its level of quality and aesthetic appeal.

Take Hologram Wilds, its latest effort, which is simultaneously futuristic yet retro. On the one hand its five reels are populated with fruit and 7s aka old school fruit machine symbols but, at the same time, the graphics – including the holographic effect on each reel – are firmly from the future.

Distinctive looking slot

The holo-effect makes for a distinctive looking slot, one that’s bathed in blue light with symbols that are held in place by holographic beams. Wilds feature prominently in the game, as you would expect from a slot named Hologram Wilds, helping to boost your chances of winning in the base game.

One of the interesting things about this Playtech slot is that the reels spin from the bottom upward, causing the symbols to head heavenwards.

Every time you record a win in the base game, the winning symbols are displayed in full colour. The rest of the time, the board remains diffused in that ghostly neon light.

Free spins and wilds

Scatters appear as a golden crown and when three of these land on reels two, three and four you’ll be awarded five free spins. It’s possible to retrigger this feature though, so awards of 10 or more free spins aren’t unusual.

Wild is worth 1,000x for five on a line and will substitute for all other symbols except scatter. As for the regular playing symbols, it all starts with cherries, in time-honoured tradition, before rising to red 7s which are worth 400x for five. Hologram Wilds has 40 paylines and a maximum bet of 400 coins.

Because Hologram Wilds is a high variance game, it’s one that requires patience to unlock the game’s main features. With stacked wilds, slick graphics and cool sound effects, this is another innovative release from Playtech.

http://www.casinopedia.org/news/playtechs-new-hologram-wild-slot

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Playtech Launches Wild West Themed Heart of the Frontier

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Omni-channel game includes show-stopping features and the chance to win a fistful of mega prizes

(PRESS RELEASE) London: June 29th 2017 – Playtech, the world’s leading omni-channel gaming software, systems and services supplier, has launched Heart of the Frontier, a new, rootin’, tootin’, shootin’ omni-channel Wild West-themed slot game, packed with exciting features and bonus rounds.

Take a trip back in time to the American West in this five-reel, 20-line slot game, featuring three fearless gun slinging cowgirls, ready to showdown across the reels.

Available in retail, online and playable across all devices, this action-packed game boasts a host of exciting features including expanding and stacked wilds, free games, a timeless western themed backdrop and incredible graphics certain to keep players entertained.

Land the ‘Sheriff’ and ‘Bandit’ expanding wild symbols in the main game and watch as they shift across the reels on subsequent spins in search of a fight, as the reels ‘ain’t big enough for the both of them!’

When the pair land on the same spin the Showdown Free Games feature is triggered with locked, expanding wilds. Players will have a blast as they watch the characters battle it out in an animated shootout, with the chance to win a fistful of mega money prizes.

Heart of the Frontier is yet another addition to Playtech’s leading portfolio of more than 600 best-performing, diverse slot games to suit any and every player, including a wealth of in-house designed and premium-branded titles, available across all platforms, channels and devices.

Shimon Akad, COO, Playtech said: “We are delighted to showcase our latest cutting-edge slot title that packs a punch with a powerful theme, exciting features and bonus rounds.

“Heart of the Frontier is a great addition to our industry-leading slot portfolio and is certain to thrill and engage both new and existing players across our extensive casino network.”

 

https://www.playtech.com/news/latest_news_and_prs/playtech_launches_wild_west_themed_heart_of_thefrontier

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