888 rebrands Dragonfish casino offering; Stan James faces “seven figure” rebrand

stan-james-rebrrand-casinoflexUK-listed online gambling operator 888 Holdings is asking the rhetorical question ‘what’s in a name’ by rebranding its Dragonfish B2B casino offering.

888 recently rechristened its B2B casino offering under the CasinoFlex moniker. However, 888 is maintaining the Dragonfish brand for the B2B division’s flagship bingo offering, as well as its B2B poker product.

888 snr. VP and biz-dev chief Yaniv Sherman told eGaming Review that Dragonfish had notable success in 2015 adding casino options to existing licensees’ bingo platforms, as well as some standalone casino launches.

Rather than attempt to go head-to-head with major online casino suppliers like Playtech and Microgaming, Sherman said 888 is positioning CasinoFlex as the solution for smaller operators, while offering the potential to “scale up as they grow.”

CasinoFlex offers operators a range of services, including a fully managed solution encompassing payments, marketing and CRM, while allowing operators to customize their game composition from over 300 titles, of which over 100 are available for mobile devices. Sherman said the UK remained the primary market for 888’s B2B operations but the company was on the verge of inking a number of “key contracts” in other jurisdictions.

STAN JAMES FACING “SEVEN-FIGURE” RETAIL REBRAND
In other rebranding news, UK bookie Stan James is facing a corporate makeover after its online division was acquired last July for £19m by Nordic betting operator Unibet. The deal gave Unibet full ownership of the Stan James brand, while the retail business was allowed to continue operating under that name for “a transitional period.”

Stan James co-founder Steve Fisher recently told the Racing Post that the company still had 12 months in which to forge a new identity for the chain’s 80-odd betting shops. Fisher estimated the change “will cost at least a million pounds” based on his formula of £10k per shop and 20% unrecoverable VAT.

Fisher said the added costs would weigh heavy on the retail business, which is already struggling from last year’s increase in the Machine Games Duty from 20% to 25%. Fisher estimated that between 20% and 25% of UK betting shops will close over the next five years, which in his case would mean three fewer shops per year.