Partnership marks the provider’s first foray into sweepstakes and the US market

Independent slots studio Thunderkick has announced its entry into the US market and social casino space through an exciting new partnership with High 5 Casino.

This collaboration will see the provider’s highly acclaimed games integrated into High 5 Casino, a free-to-play social casino gaming platform, signalling the provider’s first venture into sweepstakes.

As part of the agreement, Thunderkick will provide its popular titles, including both Pink Elephants and Sword of Khan, to High 5 Casino’s players across more than 40 states in the US.

Founded in 1995, High 5 Casino is one of the industry’s largest independent casino brands, with operations in the land-based, online, and social markets across six continents and in more than 150 countries.

This partnership, facilitated by Thunderkick’s existing relationship with Relax Gaming, represents the provider’s first move into the burgeoning US market. High 5 Casino is the first customer to benefit from this collaboration, with more brands expected to follow in the coming months.

Svante Sahlström, CCO at Thunderkick, said: “Entering the sweepstakes market and partnering with High 5 Casino is a significant milestone for Thunderkick. We are excited to introduce our games to US players for the first time and to explore the potential of this market segment.

“This collaboration allows us to showcase our innovative content to a wider audience and deliver an engaging gaming experience that closely resembles real money gambling. We are confident that our partnership with High 5 Casino will be a successful one, and we look forward to working with them to bring our games to players across the United States.”

Jerry Wilson, VP of Creative at High 5 Games, added: “Thunderkick’s games have proven to be very popular in Europe and we are excited about helping them launch, not only in the US for the first time, but with social players too.

“We’re sure our players will take to these titles, and they will become fan favourites in no time at all. We’re delighted about the launch of our new partnership.”

OpenBet Locator™ provides a highly flexible, low latency and scalable alternative for global betting and gaming marketplace

OpenBet, a leading content, platform and service provider to the global betting industry, has bolstered its modular product portfolio with the launch of its new flexible and scalable geolocation product – OpenBet Locator™.

Built on the backbone of Amazon Web Services (AWS), OpenBet’s strategic cloud provider, OpenBet Locator™ is a low latency solution that enables operators worldwide to locate, promote to, and monitor customers, remaining fully compliant with regulatory requirements.

The technology strengthens OpenBet’s reputation for market-leading player protection and compliance following the company’s acquisition of Neccton in 2023. With OpenBet’s regulatory reach and multiple licenses, brands will be able to ensure seamless and swift integration of its trusted and compliant technology into their ecosystem.

Initially targeting the North American market, the solution will feature a number of components, such as:

• Fully flexible geo-fence management and high precision location tracking
• Fraud prevention combined with real-time virtual private network (VPN) and location spoofing detection
• Player targeting for customer relationship management (CRM), data analysis and in-venue promotions
• Multi-tenanted solution that supports travelling wallet
• Easy and flexible configuration options to streamline business operations workflows

The product is underpinned by OpenBet’s unrivalled expertise within the global betting industry and is designed to remove the friction of geolocation to the end-customer’s onboarding process.

Jordan Levin, CEO of OpenBet, said: “Introducing OpenBet Locator™ is an exciting move for us and takes our modular product offering to a new level. Built in-house and leveraging AWS technology, we have developed a strong proposition that can be tailored to meet unique business needs.

“As a pioneer within the global sports betting arena for over 25 years, we have an in-depth understanding of the challenges and opportunities operators face within highly regulated markets. OpenBet Locator™ is a scalable, compliant and dependable geolocation solution that removes the barriers to operators’ success.”

Amidst an evolving economic landscape, gaming executives report a positive outlook on future industry business conditions while remaining satisfied with the current business environment, according to the American Gaming Association’s (AGA) Gaming Industry Outlook.

Nearly all gaming executives surveyed characterized the current business environment as good (44%) or satisfactory (50%), mirroring similar sentiment from Q3 2023. Meanwhile, executives are more optimistic about future conditions, with 32 percent of CEOs expecting business conditions to improve over the next six months, up from 20 percent in Q3 2023.

“Gaming’s record-setting growth over the last three years has set a new standard for industry success,” said AGA President and CEO Bill Miller. “However, as we enter a period of market normalization, continued investment and innovation in offering world-class, responsible entertainment experiences will be required to maintain industry momentum.”

Gaming Executive Panel

Gaming executives have become more positive in their views that overall balance sheet health will improve over the next 6 months (42% net positive), but they expect the pace of revenue growth (13% net negative) and new hiring (22% net negative) to slow. These expectations for decelerating growth have influenced expectations for increases in capital investment and gaming units in operation, with smaller net positive sentiments than before.

• In contrast to past Outlooks, gaming equipment suppliers are slightly pessimistic about the sale of gaming units for replacement use and new or expansion use (both 13% net negative). However, they remain optimistic about the pace of capital investment (38% net positive).
• Half of operator CEOs expect capital investments in hotels over the next year to be higher than normal, and compared to last fall, more also expect higher than normal levels of capital investment in meetings and conventions and table games (28%). Meanwhile, 44 percent of CEOs expect increases in food and beverage investment, down from 67 percent in Q3 2023.

These expectations are also informed by evolving macroeconomic challenges. Executives report that inflationary or interest rate concerns continue to be a major factor limiting operations (28%), but these have been overtaken by geo-political risk (34%) and uncertainty of the economic environment (34%) as the biggest limiting factors in the most recent Gaming Executive Panel.

Current Conditions Index
The Current Conditions Index of 102.8 for Q1 indicates solid annualized real economic growth in the industry of 2.8%. This includes gaming revenue, employment and employee wages and salaries. Notably, the Current Conditions Index shows gaming expanding faster than the overall U.S. economy which last week reported 1.6 percent GDP growth in Q1 2024.

Future Conditions Index

The Future Conditions Index stands at 102.2, indicating annualized industry economic activity, after controlling for underlying inflation, is expected to moderately increase over the next six months. This outlook reflects Oxford Economics’ forecast that the U.S. economy will slow during 2024 but avoid recession. Despite a projected economic slowdown, consumer survey results continue to indicate that more than one-third of adults expect to visit a casino during the next 12 months, consistent with prior quarter results.

About the Outlook

The AGA Gaming Industry Outlook is prepared biannually by Oxford Economics. It provides a timely measure of recent industry growth and future expectations. The Q1 2024 survey was conducted between March 28 – April 10, 2024. A total of 32 executives responded, including executives at the major international and domestic gaming companies, tribal gaming operators, single-unit casino operators, major gaming equipment suppliers, and major iGaming and/or sports betting operators.