After selling its lottery and sports-betting divisions, Scientific Games has rapidly pivoted and made an unspecified investment in live-dealer online games. It has purchased Malta-based Authentic Gaming, a company that specializes in live-dealer roulette streamed both from a Maltese studio and from European gaming floors. Authentic boasts operating partnerships with 30-plus European casino firms, offering such internet-gambling as “Mr. Green” and “LeoVegas.”
Scientific contends that live-dealer play represents more than 30 percent of online gambling and is “a key product vertical for players.” It promised to marry its own, in-house, game-development infrastructure with Authentic’s product to create products “that will provide immersive experiences for players globally and allow the company to further leverage its content IP, land-based relationships and leading OpenGaming platform for accelerated growth in this exciting channel.”
“The provider has long held ambitions of becoming the go-to firm in the field of cross-platform global gaming, with this purchase bringing Scientific Games one step closer to achieving that goal,” observed business columnist Dominic Marius-Markham.
But some steps remain. Offshore internet casinos are illegal in the U.S., so Scientific will be building stateside studios for streaming Authentic’s content. The latter, for its part, is adding blackjack to its game repertoire and plans to augment that with baccarat in the near future.
“Our proven technology and live dealer platform is ready for scale and now, as part of Scientific Games, we are able to embark on our studio expansion and game diversification strategy in full force,” said Authentic CEO Jonas Delin.
Added Dylan Slaney, head of igaming at Scientific, “As a result of welcoming Authentic to Scientific Games, we will be uniquely positioned to continue to excite and entertain players to capture both the growth opportunities that exist within Live Casino and the convergence of players globally across digital and land-based channels by providing leading immersive experiences.”
Capital for the deal could come from either Scientific’s September sale of its sports-betting assets to Endeavor, which gained the OpenBet platform in the purchase, or from the $6 billion offloading of Scientific’s lottery business to Brookfield Business Partners last week. Details of the Authentic transaction remain under wraps.