Australian gambling company and pokie machine specialist Aristocrat Leisure has revealed during its half-year briefing that it will launch an online casino product by the end of 2022.
Company to supply online casino product to US clients for launch in three states
The group’s chief executive, Trevor Croker, said on Thursday that the company would go live with two US customers in two states while it would also launch in a third state in early 2023.
The news of the online casino launch came following the announcement of a $500 million (€332.9 million) on-market share buyback as the company looks to return some of the $1.3 billion (€865 million) it raised in 2021 to fund an ultimately failed bid for Playtech.
The bid for Playtech was killed off by a group of Playtech shareholders that refused to approve the $4 billion (€3.19 billion) deal. Following the collapse of the deal, Aristocrat decided to develop its own ‘real money gaming’ business that will supply software for online gambling casinos.
The casino games supplier already has slot games software used on both physical machines (pokies) and free-to-play smartphone apps. However, the move towards real money gaming options has come as the company predicts a boom in iGaming across the United States where six states currently allow online casino gaming.
Croker also said that while the group would focus primarily on the supply of software to existing gambling companies, there is also potential for Aristocrat to launch its own direct-to-customer online casino products at some point in the future.
Speaking in the company’s half year briefing, Croker said:
“It’s going to allow our customers to provide our slots to their customers through an online application where they’ll be able to play our world-leading games on their websites.
There’s people that play across all different verticals, whether it’s retail, whether it’s social and whether it’s real money. What we’ve seen today in the markets that have established those three verticals already is that there is incremental opportunity.”
Croker also added that Aristocrat would “obviously participate” if the Australian government moved to allow casino gambling. However, this seems unlikely in the current political climate.
During the briefing the company reported a half-year net profit of AU$580 million (€386.1 million) for the six months up to March 31st 2022. This was an increase of 41% when compared to the same period a year ago. Net profit after tax grew by 46% to AU$530 million (€352.9 million).
Gambling industry journalist with a background in online poker and trading. Covering the regulated U.S Sports industry and the exciting world of online poker.