Cirsa buys Apuesta Total, Evolution acquires Galaxy Gaming, PENN outlines layoffs

The week has been a big one for some of the major companies in the gambling industry. With financial results trickling in, a round of layoffs announced, and Cirsa making a play for a competitor in Peru, there has been plenty happening.

To start with – the big news. Spanish sports betting and gaming brand Cirsa has acquired a 70% stake in Peru-based rival Apuesta Total in an all-cash transaction of undisclosed value.

The deal seeks to expand Cirsa’s regional footprint and may also be a precursor to a more ambitious move on the part of the company – an Initial Public Offering, which has not been officially confirmed.

Cirsa has also vowed to acquire the remainder of Apuesta Total’s assets at an undisclosed time in the coming years.

A second huge M&A news comes from Evolution’s corner this week, with the company looking to buy out Galaxy Gaming, one of the industry’s leading developers and distributors of casino table games.

This move further expands Evolution’s presence in the gambling industry, after the company pursued many similar acquisitions, with the company previously buying Livespins, a firm that develops innovative live slot gameplay for online casinos.

Antecedent major stitch-ups by the company include that of Nolimit City, Digiwheel, and NetEnt.

In the meantime, evoke published its second-quarter update in which it outlined slower-than-expected progress on its revenue growth.

The online gaming market remained a strong driver of growth for the company, allowing it to continue pushing towards its goal of achieving a 5% to 9% annual revenue increase.

Yet, the update noted that the second-quarter results were "behind plan," as confirmed by evoke CEO Per Widerström who had this to say commenting on the results:

"We are focused on mid and long-term profitable growth and value creation and during the first half we have made bold, decisive changes to improve almost every area of the business." Evoke is now firmly focused on the future.

In the meantime, there has been news from PENN Entertainment, which has confirmed in an internal email communication to employees that there will be limited layoffs in Penn Interactive, the company’s interactive division, which also encompasses ESPN Bet.

As ESPN Bet struggles to turn a profit and secure a larger market share, PENN, which decided to forego its partnership with Barstool Sportsbook in favor of the media-backed sports betting brand, has been struggling, facing shareholder revolt and missing financial targets.

Company CEO Jay Snowden has thanked the affected employees for their service to the company and promised to help them transition to their new places of work. ESPN Bet is not the only company in trouble in punishing sports betting landscape with others, including evoke, MaximBet, and PointsBet all pulling the plug on their regional operations.

Donald Trump and Conor McGregor in the news

Donald Trump, the now official Republican nominee for president, and the only candidate from a major party to have won his political family's backing in three consecutive years, narrowly escaped with his life during a rally last weekend, leaving one person dead and two injured. A 20-year-old shooter missed the president by a sliver.

The fallout has been fraught, but one noticeable trend captured by political betting platform PredictIt is that Trump has now received a boost in the odds of securing the White House in November.

Another gossipier event this week had to do with Conor McGregor nearly walking away from Euro 2024 with a $3.8m payday for his birthday.

The former UFC fighter bet that Spain would win the championship, securing a $1.1m payday on his first wager, and missing a $2.7m payout on his correct score wager, which tied Spain to beat England 3-1. Spain only managed to defeat the team 2-1 with a late goal.

Of regulation, responsible gambling, and research

This week was similarly interesting for other developments. For starters, the Behavioral Insights Team, a UK-based outfit, discovered that players aware of the games’ RTP may be more willing to engage with a casino and its games. The difference between making the RTP known and not known to players is small, but it may favor casinos’ efforts to boost channelization.

AFJEL, France’s gambling industry body, has sounded the alarm over the proliferation of illegal sports gambling. According to the association, the black market has now overtaken regulated gambling operations in the country, and licensed bookmakers have been losing ground or stagnating over the past three years.

Australia in the meantime is going to take a closer look at offshore lottery and keno websites, assessing whether they are harmful to consumers and the threat they may pose to consumers in the long term.

In the same stride, ACMA announced that it is adding two more websites to its list of suspended gambling operators, a list that now exceeds 1,011. Meanwhile, a multi-party effort in North Carolina is seeking to help vulnerable consumers.

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Problem Gambling, East Carolina University’s Gambling Research and Policy Initiative and Birches Health have all come together to work on a new action-led campaign designed to raise awareness for gambling harms in the state and also offer treatment options to vulnerable consumers.

Hear the industry out

This week we also had quite a bit of time to chat with important insiders from the industry. We caught up with James Raraty, Blueprint Gaming's Product Executive, with whom we discussed the studio’s commitment to building branded games based on well-known IP.

The strategy argues Raraty has its strengths and some notable drawbacks. "Using popular IP is a huge draw for players, but it’s not without its risks," he says in our interview with him.

Gerard Busom, Amigo Gaming’s Senior Account Manager for LatAm, has also spoken about Brazil and the opportunity that was now available to studios and suppliers, some of the unique challenges they face, and where they should be focusing their efforts. For a deep dive into the promising Brazilian market, don’t miss Busom’s opinion piece for Casino Guru News.

We also caught up with Casino Guru Head of Content Maros Gasparik as part of our Casino Guru Insider series with whom we discussed a range of topics, and specifically how the website puts a tremendous effort in translation and localizing its content to bring the best value to readers and players across the world.

In the meantime, Casino Guru continues to strengthen its Safety Index, the industry’s largest database for quick and informed decisions about casino brands. With a total of 3,254 casinos featured on our database and 572 new casinos to the database, the Casino Safety Index has remained a fixture in the iGaming world and an invaluable guide to players looking to find out more about specific casino brands.

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