Shuffle Master drop the vowels; Sportingbet tells courters to put up or shut up; Amaya signs another partnership

SHFL ENTERTAINMENTShuffle Master is rebranding the company as SHFL Entertainment as they enter a new chapter of the company’s life. The big unveiling is at this week’s Global Gaming Expo in Vegas and company CEO Gavin Isaacs explained that it reflects their new position as “an entertainment company” whilst still retaining a tribute to the company’s original name. Isaacs added the new name takes stock of their “broad and expanding portfolio”, which of course includes their attempts to enter the iGaming industry. Shuffle Master SHFL was lucky enough to renege on a deal for the Ongame Network when they realized the price was over the odds before it was too late. Time will tell whether that’s the right decision and if it turns out to be the wrong one they can just plead that it was Shuffle Master that made that deal and they’ve never had anything to do with them. Now STFU.

Sportingbet have reportedly told William Hill and GVC Holdings to stump up more cash if they want to take the company over. The former think the £350m joint-bid “significantly undervalues” the firm although didn’t actually issue an outright rejection of the bid itself. Panmure Gordon analysts, quoted by Reuters, added that shares in the company are “worth over 60 pence” each and that’s considerably less than the 52.5 pence the two were offering. Numis, meanwhile, think Sportingbet shareholders should “hold out for 90 pence per share” as the potential for growth is huge. We will learn more when Sportingbet release their full year results.

Amaya has signed a deal with Zukido that will see them work together on mobile casino development. The deal will initially see two games benefit from the deal including Millionaires Club 2, which will have the biggest ever jackpot on an HTML5 game. Commenting on the deal was Joe Coughlin from Amaya Interactive, who said: “Amaya is committed to having the industry’s best mobile content, so we’re very happy to be working with Zukido on this project. Not only do they have great mobile development skills they also have intrinsic knowledge of the OpenBet platform. We are looking forward to the games rolling out in the near future”.