Inspired Entertainment is striving to grow its presence in North America, as it has plans for more integration to capitalise upon its performance with operators in the region.
Speaking on the company’s recent fourth quarter earnings call, President and CEO Brooks Pierce was asked about the firm’s installation of 7,000 new terminals to replace old ones with Paddy Power and Betfred, as well as its North American performance in both retail and online segments.
During Q4, Inspired signed new long-term deals with both Paddy Power and Betfred, to supply the operators with new Vantage terminals – 5,500 to Betfred and over 1,400 to Paddy Power.
Pierce noted that the installation of the new terminals is expected to go on into the second, third and possibly fourth quarters of this year due to the coordination needed from the supply chain through to the customer, and while it’s a “big challenge”, they’re “pretty confident” about getting it done.
As for any other new terminal installations beyond Paddy Power and Betfred, Pierce mentioned that Inspired is looking to expand its retail reach in North America with potentially up to 1,150 terminals across two locations.
The CEO said: “Not meaningful in terms of in the UK, but I think I did mention that we have one jurisdiction that now is active on trial and we expect another one, both of these in North America.
“This would be an order in one location of kind of 150 terminals and another one it could be up to 1,000 terminals, so it shouldn’t stretch us in any way, but we’ve got to go through and have successful trials with them.
“If we’re successful, there will be two more markets in North America where we’ll have a presence, which is what we ultimately want to do is build a big North American gaming business.”
Pierce was then asked about Inspired’s interactive presence in North America, following its integration with FanDuel alongside its existing presence with DraftKings in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Jersey, and BetMGM in Pennsylvania.
He highlighted that Inspired’s performance with DraftKings “as of late has been very good”, and that they have a great relationship with BetMGM, with all their operating partners being “excited” about what they have planned to release in the future.
The CEO noted: “I can tell you that all of them are very excited about some of the content that we have coming out. I mentioned the Terminator licence, licensed brands really do resonate in the North American market, probably more so than around the rest of the world.
“With our background with Scientific Games, with licensed products, we’re very familiar with that space. So, I think you’ll see more and more of that going forward as a way for us to kind of differentiate ourselves.”
Pierce was also questioned about the 820 Valor terminal orders from the Western Canada Lottery Corporation and if more North American licences are to be expected in the future, or if this is harder to accomplish due to the type of machines they are offering to the market.
The CEO replied that Inspired has “plenty of runways” but they’re primarily targeting the VLT market with G2S since that’s what their technology is built upon.
“There’s a number of opportunities across the Canadian provinces, certainly Oregon, so, those are the markets that we’re going for. Illinois is obviously now pretty much moved into a replacement market,” he said.
“I would say that doing anything in class three or historical horse racing or any of that space is not something that we’re contemplating at the moment, but we certainly have the competency to be able to go into those markets if we chose to. Right now, we see a line of sight to the VLT G2S market is really the primary driver for our growth.”