Gaming Innovation Group is eyeing central and eastern Europe as prime candidate for future expansion following a recent maiden launch within the Balkans nation of Serbia.
This follows news from earlier in the week as Betsson debuted its Rizk online casino portal within the country, which is powered by the Malta-headquartered group.
The operator purchased the brand in a €33m April 2020 transaction amid the acquisition of GiG’s Zecure Gaming B2C vertical, which included Rizk as well as sister entities Guts, Kaboo and Thrills and related operational entities.
Subsequently, Betsson also became a long term partner of GiG, generating revenues for platform services.
“I am optimistic that Rizk will be successful in Serbia, an exciting market for us at Betsson Group,” Andrew Valenzia, Commercial Director of Betsson, noted.
“I would like to express my gratitude to all the teams involved for their dedication and hard work in making this market entry possible.”
This latest development follows a similar launch undertaken in June as Rizk entered Germany’s digital ecosystem, with the partnership currently spanning 10 regulated markets across Europe and Latin America.
GiG is anticipating online gaming revenue in Serbia to generate approximately €120m through the current year, as well as expecting an annual growth rate of approximately eight percentage points.
Marcel Elfersy, Chief Commercial Officer at GiG, said: “Our relationship with the team at Betsson continues to offer exciting new opportunities as we expand further into new and emerging markets together.
“Serbia and the wider CEE region is an important focus of growth for us, having built a full suite of tailorable platform and sportsbook solutions well suited to meet and exceed the expectations that leading operators have from their platform partners. ”
Last month, GiG’s latest quarterly report highlighted that revenue reached “another all-time high” after increasing 40 per cent year-on-year to close at €31.1m (2022: €22.1m).
Breaking this figure down, GiG Media took the lion’s share with €21.7m, up 47 per cent from €14.8m YoY, while Platform & Sportsbook witnessed a 27 per cent revenue uptick to €9.3m (2022: €7.3m).
