Playtech’s rapid growth continues unabated

The Playtech wagon appears to be rolling on with the software giant releasing details of its financial results for the final quarter of 2011 and also confirming a number of new partnerships which they believe will come to fruition over the course of the next 12 months.

The first bit of news concerned Europe and the German market in particular where Playtech have entered into a joint venture with Gauselmann – the owner of the Merkur gaming brand a number of offline bookmakers. The agreement will allow both parties to offer a variety of digital sports betting and gambling products once the laws governing the legalisation in Germany have been clarified.

Playtech has also been busy in South Africa too – another country where the governing powers are considering legalising online gambling. Here too, Playtech have entered in to a 50:50 agreement with Peermont – another casino operator which operates fourteen different establishments including the revered Emperors Palace casino which is based in Johannesburg. As in Germany, Playtech will help Peermont develop a number of different products which will initially launch in the sports betting industry before presumably spreading into poker and casino once legislation has been officially introduced.

Playtech hasn’t stopped there though. They have splashed the cash in the UK once more with the purchase of the sports book developer Genietry for a price believed to be in the region of £11m. As seems to be the case with most of Playtech’s most recent deals, an additional £4m is said to be payable based on the performance of the company over the next couple of years.

Genietry was formed a little under six years ago, but has grown to such an extent that it already counts some industry heavyweights such as Gala, Ladbrokes and Betfair as clients. Playtech presumably will use their software to replace their own sports betting product and experts are predicting that the software will also be integrated into the Mobenga mobile sports betting platform that Playtech also recently acquired.

The analysts though were keen to hear about Playtech’s financial performance and they certainly weren’t disappointed. Throughout 2011, gross income increased by a little over 40% to a very impressive €243.6m. This was a figure that obviously impressed Mor Weizer but the Playtech Chief Exec was keen to echo his previous thoughts of future growth.

“Growth from our existing business has created a solid platform for 2012,” he said. “Taken together with today’s other announcements, I believe Playtech is well positioned to take advantage of market opportunities wherever as and when they appear.”

Perhaps most excitingly though, Weizer hinted that Playtech would be looking to to take advantage of the US Department of Justice’s decision before Christmas to relax the laws relating to online casino games in the States. Playtech entering the American market would be just the boost that the US gambling industry would need and a successful move would rubber stamp Playtech’s position as the largest software development company in the world.