Spotlight Sports Group on Thursday announced a partnership with free-to-play and pay-to-play games supplier Engage Games, adding the design, build and delivery of bespoke games for sportsbook operators, racing organizations and sports rights-holders to the services it offers partners worldwide.
The partnership extends SSG’s services into games for the first time, combining the company’s global product and content distribution, brand recognition and partner network with Engage Games’ games platform and established free-to-play and pay-to-play track record.
“This partnership marks a significant step for SSG as we extend our product capability into the games space,” Spotlight Sports Group B2B Growth Director Rob Brown said in a statement. ”In Engage Games, we have found a partner with a proven ability to deliver games that produce real commercial outcomes for partners. By combining Engage’s games engine with our data, content and global distribution, we’re able to provide bespoke, data-informed games across racing and sport. In addition, our racing titles, powered by Smart View, bring the intelligence behind our most successful products into an entirely new format.”
A news release said the partnership comes as operators across the sector increasingly turn to free-to-play games as a core channel for engagement, retention, reactivation and acquisition. It gives SSG partners access to customer-led games designed to solve specific commercial challenges, each built collaboratively with the partner, tailored to their objectives and continuously optimized using live game metrics.
Engage Games offers a portfolio spanning multiple formats, including fantasy, predictor, survivor and bet builder mechanics across racing and sport. Racing titles will be powered by SSG’s proprietary Smart View Engine, extending the reach of Smart View beyond racecards and tipping products and into games for the first time.
Engage Games has a track record of delivering measurable results for major operators. According to a news release, Final One Standing, a survivor-based game built for William Hill, delivered 92% weekly retention and generated 105,000 reactivations and first-time depositors over six months, making it the most successful free-to-play game in William Hill’s history. Final One Standing also launched in Spain with William Hill, a first step beyond the UK and Ireland as Engage Games looks to take its games international.
GoalBuilder+, launched with Betfred, is the first free-to-play game to use real pitch and goal coordinate data, challenging players to predict the exact first goal via the scoring foot, the area of the pitch it is struck from, and where in the goal it lands. It exceeded entry targets by 220% in its opening month.
Lucky Stable, a free-to-play horse racing game launched with William Hill and The Jockey Club, is powered by SSG’s Smart View ratings. Integrated directly into William Hill’s sportsbook and featured on-course at this year’s Cheltenham Festival, it attracted more than 500,000 entries in its first four weeks and delivered four times William Hill’s previous horse racing free-to-play benchmarks.
Recently Engage Games launched Matchday Challenge with Boyle Sports, a bet builder-style free-to-play game in which riskier selections earn bigger points as players compete on a peer-to-peer leaderboard.
SSG will market and distribute Engage Games’ capability to its global partner network, with Engage Games leading game design, development and technical delivery. The partnership gives operators a leading route into games, backed by SSG’s data, content expertise and trusted industry position.
“Over the last 18 months, Engage Games has established itself as a leading games partner to operators in the UK and beyond,” said Engage Games Founder Ryan Lawrence. “Partnering with SSG – one of the most trusted names in global racing and sports betting – reflects the reputation and results we’ve built, and it’s the natural next step in our mission, to get better game experiences into the hands of as many players as possible. Through SSG’s network, we can now put proven, performance-driven capabilities in front of operators and rights holders worldwide.”
