Exclusive: Playtech to license social platform to sportsbooks, admits CEO
Mor Weizer says provider in discussions with "leading UK sportsbooks" to supply social gaming platform " confirms acquisition of CTXM, Slots Farm and Viaden Gaming stake.
Playtech is in discussions to license its under-development social platform to leading UK sportsbook operators, chief executive Mor Weizer (pictured) has admitted to eGR after confirming it has purchased a 20% stake in Viaden Gaming and acquired games developer CTXM, developers of popular Facebook casino Slots Farm.
The Viaden, CTXM and Slots Farm acquisitions are the first stage in Playtech’s development of a B2B social gaming platform, Weizer admitted, which will feature free-play versions of the company’s core casino products. “The platform will allow us to upload content to Facebook as a fully integrated social gaming platform. We will also leverage what products we have internally to create a fully developed offering,” Weizer said.
He went on to reveal that the company is in discussions with a number of “leading UK sportsbook operators” interested in partnering with Playtech to create social games offerings “due to the quality of the product on offer”. However, Weizer declined to name the interested parties.
The social acquisitions, despite no details of when they will be put to a shareholder vote, were agreed ahead of the Playtech’s planned move from the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) to the full list later this year in order to “avoid a conflict of interest and market uncertainty,” Weizer told eGR, as the companies were formerly owned by the supplier’s founder and majority (48%) shareholder Teddy Sagi. “We wanted to ensure the deals gave us full access to the play-for-fun social gaming products,” he explained. Sagi will still retain an 80% stake in Viaden.
Weizer revealed Playtech’s 95m investment in social gaming covers the stake in Viaden as well as the acquisition of CTXM and its social gaming arm Slots Farm, which he explained would be treated as two separate entities. He went on to say that the cost of each acquisition has yet to be agreed.
“We haven’t attributed business-by-business cost for each company,” he added. “The deals have to go through shareholder approval before we decide on the separate costs, so we will notify the market in due course,” he explained.