News in brief: EU urges OPAP sale; Pokertube founders launch Casinotube
The European Union has advised the Greek finance minister that the country must speed up planned asset sales to reduce its debt.
The EU has told Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou that Greece needs to speed up planned asset sales, including its stake in Europe’s largest listed gambling company OPAP, if it is to regain control of its debt, according to Bloomberg. The government has now hired banks to advise on plans to raise 50bn by 2015 to help reduce its debt. Papaconstantinou told lawmakers on Friday that the sale of stakes in listed companies was the immediate priority.
Pokertube co-founders Stefan Wittmoss and Ronnie Gustafsson have launched a new gambling video site, Casinotube.com. The site, which counts 888 and PartyCasino among its partners, allows users to upload video content of their own to complement the gambling videos aggregated in advance of the site’s launch. The site also acts as an affiliate portal, directing players to special online casino tournaments on all the partner sites, which will be filmed and replayed on Casinotube.
Caesars Entertainment has bought a 51% stake in Israeli social game developer Playtika, which develops games for use on social networking sites such as Facebook and its Russian counterpart Vkontakte. According to Israeli business news source Globes, the deal values the company at US$80m-US$90m (£49m-£55.4m), making it the largest acquisition of an Israeli gaming company. Playtika, which developed the Slotomania series of games, counts former 888 CEO Gigi Levy among its investors. The company’s monthly turnover is about US$100,000 and has yet to yield a positive cash flow from operations, according to the Israeli business news source.
Svenska Spel has appointed Lennart Käll as its new CEO. Käll replaces Anders Hägg, who had taken the role on a temporary basis following the resignation of Meta Persdotter last year.
Adam Neilson, chief technology officer at Probability, has stepped down from the board of the mobile games specialist with immediate effect. CEO Charles Cohen reassured shareholders that “His departure will not affect in any way our plans for new products and entering new markets.”
Mahjong Logic has signed a strategic partnership with HoGaming, which will allow customers of the live dealer provider to integrate mahjong to their setup. The move is targeted particularly at the Asian market, building on the popularity of baccarat within HoGaming’s stable.
Argentinean egaming company Leander Games – which recently made its games available on Playtech-owned Gaming Technology Solutions’ EdGe platform – has signed a deal with heavy metal band Megadeth. The brand licensing deal will allow Leander to develop games themed around the band, which has several songs on the Guitar Hero series of games.
The Hippodrome Casino has followed up last week’s launch of its online offering with the launch of an affiliate programme. The site, operated on behalf of the casino by Gaming Media Group’s InTouch Gaming white label business and powered by Boss Media software, is offering affiliates a 40% revenue share deal when they sign up.