The UK bookmaker William Hill has reached an agreement to showcase Net Entertainment games, and the Top Video Game Christmas odds have been withdrawn from the site after the success of GTA5.
William Hill are on the up and up with revenues rising 20% to $751.6m in the first half of the year and increasing activity on the Las Vegas strip, and down under, designed to continue that momentum.
The successful start to 2013 is thanks to growth in online gambling and mobile gambling, and that is only going to improve after Hills have reached an agreement with Net Entertainment to provide their top of the range gaming catalogue to Hills customers, both on the desktop and mobile devices.
“We continue to follow our growth strategy in the UK market, and I am very excited that William Hill has selected Net Entertainment as supplier for a selection of our best in class casino games to be distributed over their online casino network,” Björn Krantz, Chief of GMO and MD Net Entertainment Malta Ltd. stated in a press release. “The agreement with William Hill solidifies the trust and confidence our partners have in our operational and technical leadership. Both parties are now working very close together to secure a successful integration and planning for commercial launch and we are convinced that our games will be well received by William Hill’s player base.”
The news comes just a week after Net Entertainment signed a Global Game Supply Framework Agreement with SPIELO International UK Limited, which is a subsidiary of GTECH S.p.A (GTECH), in a deal that allows Net Entertainment to supply World Lottery Association (WLA) customers with access to its gaming catalogue exclusively through GTECH.
“GTECH is a global leader within the regulated WLA operator segment, and we are very excited about this partnership which will allow Net Entertainment the opportunity to efficiently reach a new market segment that nicely fits into our growth strategy. The WLA lottery market requires trustworthy, reliable and stable partners, and GTECHs selection of Net Entertainment is yet more proof of the trust and confidence that exists in our delivery capabilities,” Björn Krantz, Chief of GMO and MD Net Entertainment Malta Ltd. commented in a press release.
Hills withdraw top video game Christmas no.1 odds after the success of GTA5
Just prior to the launch of Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA5), William Hill were offering odds of 4 to 1 that the game that cost $265m to develop and market would be the Christmas number one, with Call of Duty: Ghosts the favorite at odds of 6/4.
This morning that market has vanished, after GTA5 created $1bn worth of sales after its first three days of release.
“It’s too early for the market,” said a William Hills spokesperson this morning.
GTA5 is not only set to become the biggest game of all time, but it looks likely that it could be set to be the biggest form of entertainment of all time. The entire global music industry makes less than $1.4bn in sales per month, and the 2013 number one rated movie, in terms of sales, was Iron Man III, and that only created $372m in the first weekend of its release.
It’s going to be a an interesting run up to Christmas and perhaps Call of Duty: Ghosts insert as the 6/4 favorite is more to do with its Nov 5th release than anything else. The GTA5 bandwagon is currently experienced a puncture of sorts as sales spiral due to a lack of units. FIFA 14 by EA Sports has recently knocked GTA5 off the top of the charts debuting in first place.
Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 was the kingpin as Santa Claus came down the chimney last year.
