888 Holdings acquires Mytopia from Real Dice Gaming

By Daniel Johnson

888 will pay Real Dice Gaming an initial cash payment of $12 million for assets which include Mytopia, the game development studio. This will be followed by a further payment of $6 million payable in cash upon reaching specific targets in 2011.

The move will allow 888 to strengthen its position in the mobile and social gaming markets as it will utilise Mytopia’s expertise in this field. The software development studio was launched by Real Dice back in 2008 as a means of developing cross-platform games for social sites such as Facebook and MySpace, as well as gaming options for mobile gaming devices.

888’s strategy is to increase its share of the social gaming market, which has been highlighted as the next big growth area of the gaming industry. 888 is currently adding more social poker applications as well as real-time multi-player mobile poker games which will work on Apple iPhones 3 and 4, Windows Mobile and J2ME handsets, Google Androids version 1 and BlackBerry phones. This latest acquisition will also include Bingo Island 2, which ranks among the most popular bingo applications currently being enjoyed on Facebook. These products will also be offered by 888’s Dragonfish Business-to-Business partners.

888 was founded in 1997 and has become one of the largest casino websites on the internet. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Gibraltar based Cassava Enterprises Limited. Its gaming sites include 888.com, 888 poker, 888ladies and 888sport.

It would seem that investors agree with 888’s foresight. Since the announcement of the deal 888 Holdings PLC’s share price on the London Stock Exchange has increased by 2.01%.