London: March 20th 2017 – Veikkaus and win2day have this week gone live with the industry’s first cross-border poker network powered by Playtech.
In an industry-first, the respective Finnish and Austrian gaming brands have joined forces to launch a joint poker network using liquidity from both player bases. This has instantly doubled the number of customers playing the widest variety of omni-channel poker products via a dedicated Playtech-powered iPoker network.
This is the first time that two regulated entities have joined forces to share cross-border poker liquidity and follows win2day meeting a series of stringent responsibility standards accredited by Veikkaus and the Finnish authorities.
The liquidity sharing agreement was approved by the Finnish Ministry of Interior on December 8th and the Austrian Ministry of Finance on August 8th last year. Veikkaus, that merged with RAY and Fintoto earlier this year to form a new entity, and win2day, previously had to limit online poker to domestic players only.
Playtech has long-standing relationships with both brands. RAY, now Veikkaus, has partnered with Playtech since 2010, setting the benchmark in the Nordic region and establishing the country’s leading gaming operation, while Playtech has worked closely with win2day since 2015, providing the Austrian Lotteries and Casinos Austria-owned brand with a new poker network.
Playtech has recently invested significant development resources in poker, enhancing its award-winning iPoker client by introducing a new lobby and home tab, completing a full overhaul of the software’s poker tables and launching a series of new game views, enabling easier and fully personalised access to a wide variety of players’ favourite games.
Shimon Akad, COO, Playtech, said: “This is a milestone in poker and the gaming industry, and we’re delighted to be at the heart of yet another industry-first providing two great brands with the leading poker network and a series of leading products that I’m confident will prove a huge success going forward.”
Timo Kiiskinen, Senior Vice President, ICT, Veikkaus, said: “We are extremely happy with the overall product and the network’s performance so far, and are delighted to have launched on schedule. This is a great venture between ourselves, win2day and Playtech and we’re sure it will be a great success.”
Martin Jekl, Managing Director, win2day said: “Working with Veikkaus and Playtech has been a seamless process and we are very pleased with the results of the network in the first few days since launch. Our customers now have access to the best and most responsible poker experience on the market and we look forward to seeing what the rest of the year will bring.”
About Playtech
Playtech is a market leader in the gambling and financial trading industries. Founded in 1999 and listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange, Playtech has more than 5,000 employees in 17 countries.
Playtech is the gambling industry’s leading software and services supplier with more than 140 licensees globally, including many of the world’s leading regulated online, retail and mobile operators, land-based casino groups, government sponsored entities such as lotteries, and new entrants opening operations in newly-regulated markets. Its business intelligence-driven gambling software offering includes casino, live casino, bingo, poker and sports betting.
It is the pioneer of omni-channel gambling which, through Playtech ONE, offers operators and their customers, a seamless, anytime, anywhere experience across any product, any channel (online, mobile, retail) and any device using a single account and single wallet. It provides marketing expertise, sophisticated CRM solutions and other services for operators seeking a full turnkey solution.
Playtech’s Financials division operates both on a B2C and B2B basis. Its B2C focused offering is an established and growing online CFDs broker, operating the brand markets.com. Its B2B offering includes the division’s proprietary trading platform, CRM and back-office systems, as well as its liquidity technology platform which provides retail brokers with multi-asset execution, prime brokerage services, liquidity and complementary risk management tools.
