Gamesys

Gamesys
Type Private
Traded as Gamesys Ltd
Founder(s) Noel Hayden
Industry Internet
Employees 900+ Worldwide
Website www.gamesys.co.uk
Type of site Gambling
Registration Yes
Users 40 million+
Launched April 2001
Current status Active

The company

The Gamesys Group was founded in 2001 by Noel Hayden and a small team of developers with the aim of building one of the world’s most successful online entertainment businesses. 12 years on, they are now 900 people strong and still growing with headquarters based in Central London. Gamesys are a software developer and operator and currently operate several of the UK and Europe’s leading online social and real money slots, casino and bingo sites on both web and mobile / tablet with new products and apps being released regularly. More recently Gamesys partnered with Facebook to become the first company worldwide to launch real cash gaming applications on their platform.

Across the group in 2012, wagering was over $6.4 Billion with their largest UK site alone paying out in excess of $312 Million in prize money every month.

Their continued year on year growth, ground breaking acquisitions including Virgin Games and strategic partnerships with Tropicana Casinos, Caesars, News Corp and many more means Gamesys is now considered by the industry’s most prominent magazine eGaming Review, as the 5th most influential online gaming company in the world.[1]

The group now includes:

Industry awards

Gamesys was named as the UK’s number 1 fastest-growing private technology company in the Sunday Times 2006 Tech Track 100. In the 2007 listing, Gamesys was ranked at 28. The Tech Track 100 is compiled by Fast Track and ranks Britain’s fastest growing unquoted technology firms by sales.[2]

2007 - Jackpotjoy.com won the Egaming Review Bingo Operator of the Year award. 2010 - Jackpotjoy.com won the Which Bingo Site of the Year award. 2011 - EGR Winners - Slots Operator of the Year, Bingo Operator of the Year, Best Marketing Campaign of the Year 2012 - EGR Winners - Affiliate Programme of the Year, Customer Services Operator of the Year, Social Casino Product of the Year [3] 2013 - EGR Winners - Innovation in Slots, Innovation in Bingo[4]

Websites

The Group's primary soft-gaming brand is Jackpotjoy.com which offers both free-to-play and pay-to-play versions of their games. The games are browser-based and do not require a download. Jackpotjoy has launched games based around classic UK TV game shows including The Price Is Right, Strike It Lucky and Deal or No Deal. The company has licensed its software to a Spanish company and is making inroads into the European Market under the Botemania brand.

Gamesys now holds the News International SunBingo.co.uk and FabulousBingo.co.uk contracts and provides software, support and services to News International in this respect. A full re-launch of SunBingo.co.uk was made on 26 August 2008 after their decision to move to Gamesys after ending their contract with tombola. FabulousBingo.co.uk was launched in September 2011 shortly after the demise of the News of the World Sunday newspaper and its accompanying bingo site.

The company has a contract with Harrah's Entertainment, the owners of Caesars Palace, for the CaesarsBingo.com site and Games.Heart.co.uk, which is the gaming site for Heart FM radio.

The Spanish site botemania.es is also part of the Gamesys network.

Gamesys Limited’s Jackpotjoy brand and other assets were sold to Canadian online gaming company, Intertain Group on February 5, 2015 for an initial payment of £425.8 million with additional payments to be made between years three and five. The sale price consists of a combination of cash, share considerations and cash earn out payments.[5]

As a result of the sale, Intertain now owns both the UK and Swedish Jackpotjoy brands, Spanish brand Star Spins plus the social gaming apps for both. Another aspect of the deal includes a service agreement in which Gamesys will remain onboard under the terms of a service agreement to provide end-to-end technical, marketing and operational services across the brands for a period of ten years with a clause for the possibility to license gaming content for another ten years.

Notes

External links