Mobile gambling specialist Probability has agreed to acquire the entire issued share capital of Playyoo, a private company registered and headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland.
Playyoo is being acquired for an initial consideration of approximately £1.8m, satisfied by the issue of 2,404,415 ordinary shares in the company, with up to a further 1,700,000 ordinary shares to be issued depending on the performance of Playyoo during the 2013 calendar year.
The company develops and operates a B2B mobile gambling and sports betting technology for the recently regulated Italian market. This technology enables Italian licensed gambling operators to offer casino and betting games on smartphones through a single integration to the Playyoo platform. Its clients include SNAI, Cogetech and NeoMobile.
Playyoo's mobile gambling games have been approved by Italian gambling regulator AAMS and its platform has been integrated into the administrative and reporting systems which AAMS operates.
While Playyoo has been developing its technology for several years, it only recently began to generate revenues from this service and launched its first gambling game in January this year. However, based upon the contracts already signed, the pipeline of new products and the potential of additional revenues from slots games after December 2012, the company expects the acquisition to be earnings accretive in the next full financial year.
Charles Cohen, chief executive of Probability, commented: "This acquisition gives us immediate access to the Italian gambling market, early revenues and the opportunity to grow rapidly as the market opens up to slots later this year.”
He added: "Italy is, in our view, the most attractive of all regulated European markets outside the UK at the present time.”
Cohen went on to say: "Buying Playyoo fast-tracks us into this market with a proven technology which already meets the stringent requirements of the Italian regulatory system.”
