NEW YORK, Feb. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Inspired
Entertainment, Inc. ("Inspired") (NASDAQ: INSE) today provided
an update on growth trends and recent business developments in its
online operations, comprised of its leading global slot and virtual
sports content licensed to online operators.
During 2020, aggregate revenue from all of Inspired's online
businesses rose from £1.2 million in January to £3.1 million in
December ($1.7 million to
$4.3 million)1, a
two-and-a-half-fold increase. Inspired's growth in casino and
virtual sports online outpaced the general market, even while the
general market for online games grew significantly during
2020.
Much of Inspired's growth in 2020 came from its existing
customer base in Europe,
reflecting the growing migration of end users to online platforms,
an increase in the volume and popularity of the Company's new
proprietary content, significantly improved game quality, strong
account management and the launch of Virtual Plug & Play™
("VPP"), Inspired's complete end-to-end online and mobile
all-in-one virtual offering. Additionally, Inspired launched
with over 50 new online customers throughout the UK, New Jersey, Canada, Greece, Mexico, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Italy
and Sweden and further expanded
its base of interactive aggregators.
Between January 2020 and
December 2020, Inspired's peak level
of casino game play increased from 8,000 plays per minute to over
22,000 plays per minute, reflecting the scalability of Inspired's
technology platform to accommodate significant increases in
volumes. Inspired expects these growth trends, both in the
general market and with respect to its business, to continue in
2021 through further jurisdictional expansion, new commercial
agreements and continued strong product development across both
casino and virtual sports online. Given the scalable nature
of Inspired's online business, it is expected that any growth in
this business will lead to increasing operating margins over
time.
Jurisdictional Expansion
Inspired entered the North
American marketplace at the end of 2018 and experienced
accelerating growth during 2020. Inspired's business is
expected to benefit from an increased presence in a number of key
jurisdictions.
- Success in New
Jersey - Inspired has expanded its presence to now
include over half of the New
Jersey operators as revenue-generating customers. Given the
performance of our content in the market, a number of additional
customers intend to launch our VPP product in the near future.
- New Supplier License in Michigan - Inspired was granted a
provisional license to supply its online games by the Michigan
Gaming Control Board in January 2021.
Michigan has launched play and,
with a population of approximately 10 million people, remains a
focus iGaming market for Inspired. Building on a foundation of
commitments from multiple online casino operators, Inspired's
remote gaming server ("RGS") platform is expected to launch in
early 2021 with 12 slot titles and to add to this continuously
going forward.
- New Supplier License in West
Virginia - Inspired was granted a supplier license
from the West Virginia Lottery Commission in November 2020 and has commitments to distribute
its content later in 2021.
Recent Customer Developments
Inspired has agreements
with most of the major online operators and aggregators and
continues to seek to expand its distribution channels and brand
awareness in North America and
beyond by making its casino and virtual sports online content
available through these operators and aggregators.
- Expanded Framework Agreement with Entain - In
January 2021, Inspired entered into a
new long-term agreement with Entain plc (LSE: ENT) for the
provision of virtual sports across Entain's brands. Entain is one
of the world's largest sports betting and gaming groups, using some
of the industry's most iconic brands such as Ladbrokes, Coral,
BetMGM, bwin, Sportingbet, Eurobet, partypoker, partycasino, Gala
and Foxy Bingo. This agreement is incremental to Inspired's
existing contract for online casino content and represents a
significant extension in scope and duration to the existing
arrangements.
- Expanded Arrangement with Snaitech in Italy - In January 2021, Inspired entered into a new virtual
sports agreement with SNAITECH in Italy. This agreement expands upon the
companies' existing partnership and provides for the launch of
virtual sports on SNAITECH's sports betting app and an additional
seven virtuals products in 2021, giving SNAITECH the largest suite
of virtuals in Italy. Inspired
also supplies Interactive content to SNAITECH, a subsidiary of
Playtech (LSE: PTEC), which offers sport and horse race betting,
virtual sports, video lottery, slots, both online and mobile,
esports and pari-mutuel in retail and online.
- Launch with Stoiximan and OPAP in Greece – Adding to its
successful Greek online business, which includes Novibet,
Inspired's Interactive content launched with Stoiximan and OPAP in
the second half of 2020, with scheduled online virtuals expected to
launch in 2021. Stoiximan is a leading Greek online gaming site
owned by OPAP S.A. Inspired's games have consistently been among
the top performers in the retail marketplace in Greece and these online launches bring
Inspired's best-in-class slot and virtual sports content directly
to customers both online and in mobile. Greece has been a standout region for
Inspired's online growth in 2020 and creating content for this
market is a key strategic objective for Inspired in 2021.
Product Development
Inspired has utilized its
industry-leading portfolio of in-house produced virtual sports and
slot content to create a diverse portfolio of high-performing HTML5
games for both online and mobile players. In the past year,
the Company has seen an approximate 50% increase in new slot title
introductions and the launch of a new online virtual sportsbook and
several virtual sports variants.
- More Online Slot Introductions - In 2020,
the Company introduced 31 new Interactive slot games versus 20 in
2019. In 2021, Inspired expects to release up to an additional 40
games into its existing library of over 100 games. Players want to
play in innovative new ways and many of these new games will be
custom built to suit players in specific markets, such as
North America and Greece. In addition to increasing the cadence
of game development, the Company believes it has successfully
improved game quality while delivering additional proprietary
content to operators as it continues to seek to increase exposure,
improve game positioning and improve customer relationships.
- Inspired's Complete End-to-End Virtual Sports Offering
Rolling Out - Inspired launched its proprietary VPP
platform in 2020 and has completed integrations with each of the
leading RGS platforms including Scientific Games, Playtech, SBTech,
Pariplay and iForium. VPP is simple, quick to install and
customizable, making Inspired's multi-award-winning virtual sports
available with no sportsbook integration. This first launched with
Misli, Turkey's fastest growing
gaming website, and has seen stellar results. A larger rollout is
expected throughout 2021.
- Additional Best-in-Class Virtuals Content
- As a pioneer in virtual sports, Inspired continuously
rolls out new variants of existing games, including Matchday
Soccer™, Basketball, US Horses and NFL Alumni™ ("NFLA") football.
Several additional variants are expected to be introduced during
2021, including specific games and betting structures tailored to
the North American market, where Inspired intends to produce
best-in-class content as they do throughout Europe.
"We are very pleased to see our Online business continue its
impressive revenue growth trajectory," said Lorne Weil, Executive Chairman of Inspired.
"Online gaming is a multi-billion dollar, high-growth segment and
we believe we have barely scratched the surface with our casino and
virtual sports products. With the growing popularity of our
content, increased brand awareness and rapid speed to market, we
are confident we are well-positioned to capitalize on this
opportunity. Going forward, we expect the online operations to make
up a larger part of our business and we are excited for the future
as we seek to grow further through jurisdictional expansion, new
commercial agreements and product development."
About Inspired Entertainment, Inc.
Inspired
offers an expanding portfolio of content, technology, hardware and
services for regulated gaming, betting, lottery, social and leisure
operators across retail and mobile channels around the
world. The Company's gaming, virtual sports, interactive and
leisure products appeal to a wide variety of players, creating new
opportunities for operators to grow their revenue. The Company
operates in approximately 35 jurisdictions worldwide,
supplying gaming systems with associated terminals and content
for more than 50,000 gaming machines located in betting shops,
pubs, gaming halls and other route operations; virtual sports
products through more than 44,000 retail channels; digital games
for 100+ websites; and a variety of amusement entertainment
solutions with a total installed base of more than 19,000
devices. Additional information can be found
at www.inseinc.com.
Forward Looking Statements
This news release may
contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the
"safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by
the use of words such as "anticipate," "believe," "expect,"
"estimate," "plan," "will," "would" and "project" and other similar
expressions that indicate future events or trends or are not
statements of historical matters. These statements are based on
Inspired's management's current expectations and beliefs, as well
as a number of assumptions concerning future events.
Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown
risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors, many
of which are outside of Inspired's control and all of which could
cause actual results to differ materially from the results
discussed in the forward-looking statements. Accordingly,
forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as
representing Inspired's views as of any subsequent date, and
Inspired does not undertake any obligation to update
forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after
the date they were made, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise, except as required by law. You are
advised to review carefully the "Risk Factors" section of
Inspired's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended
December 31, 2019 and in Inspired's
subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, which are available,
free of charge, on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's
website at www.sec.gov.
Contact:
For Investors
Aimee Remey
aimee.remey@inseinc.com
+1 646 565-6938
For Press and Sales
inspiredsales@inseinc.com
1 Financials are unaudited and assume an FX exchange
rate of 1.37 as of February 5, 2021
for each of January and December
2020.
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SOURCE Inspired Entertainment, Inc.