32Red to target Ladbrokes' Microgaming customers
Bosses at 32Red feel Ladbrokes' move to Playtech will create opportunities for its Micorgaming-powered casino as it looks to finalise new sponsorship deals
32Red plans to take advantage of Ladbrokes’ decision to switch its gaming software provider to Playtech and target customers of the bookmaker’s outgoing Microgaming products.
In March, Ladbrokes agreed a deal with Playtech which will see the gaming software giant take the reins from rival Microgaming, with the transition expected to complete in the coming months.
32Red, which has a long-running relationship with Microgaming, now hopes to attract the Ladbrokes’ punters which may have become accustomed to Microgaming’s exclusive games.
“There’s definitely an idea that people are interested in particular providers of particular games and will come to us from Ladbrokes,” 32Red CEO Ed Ware (pictured), who previously spent 15 years at Ladbrokes, said.
“I think the marketing guys are looking at ways in which to target the Ladbrokes’ Microgaming players,” 32Red CFO Jon Hale confirmed.
“They’d be mad not to as the slot machines are slightly different from Microgaming to Playtech. If you are a player of Tomb Raider, Playtech won’t have that and we will target those players,” Hale added.
In addition, the company will also be announcing new sponsorship deals in the coming weeks as it looks to make use of the money received from the early termination of its deal with Swansea City.
Although he ruled out a deal with another UK football team, Ware suggested an agreement with a media company could be imminent.
“We are good at spending money with media owners in the UK and, in many ways, they like the cut of our jib because we are clean cut and have certain connotations which are attractive so we’ll be making that count in the second half of the year and I’ll be very pleased to talk about that as and when we conclude those deals,” Ware said.
Last month, 32Red agreed a deal with Bologna FC which will see it become the official casino partner of the Serie A football club over the next two seasons in a move aimed at boosting it burgeoning Italian business. In June the company also signed sponsorship agreements with football league clubs Crawley Town and Newport County.
Ware and Hale were speaking after 32Red announced a strong set of H1 results with revenues up 15% to £19m. Early indications showed the company’s H2 revenues were up 27% year-on-year ten weeks into the period.