Online gambling industry veteran taking Stride Gaming public

Industry veteran and former Sportingbet CEO Nigel Payne is to float the multi-branded online bingo business Stride Gaming on London’s Alternative Investment Market this week to assemble the financial clout required for growth through acquisitions.

Payne is CEO of Stride, and hopes to raise around GBP 10 million in order to capitalise on the changing UK industry and its potential for consolidation.

He says Stride is profitable and managed by an experienced team with ambitions to become the market leader in online bingo.

The regulatory and tax changes in the UK market have made it difficult for a fragmented online bingo industry to survive, leading to the failure of small operators, reduced competition and opportunities for cost-effective acquisitions.

Stride Gaming, Payne says, offers clearly differentiated multi-branded bingo experiences to target different categories of players.

The company’s online bingo brands include Kitty Bingo, Lucky Pants Bingo, Bingo Extra, Jackpot Liner and King Jackpot, together with the online casino brands Spin and Win and Magical Vegas.

Stride claims that its NGR has surged 40 percent between the first quarter and final quarter of 2014, a period in which it also bought Table Top Entertainment, which included the Jackpot Cafe, Jackpot Liner and King Jackpot brands.

The company says that a key advantage is that it owns its proprietary software and does not need to relay on third party software providers.

In addition, it focuses solely on regulated markets, primarily the UK, where the time and cost of getting gaming licenses gives it higher barriers to entry for potential rivals.

In today’s flotation announcement, the group said that the UK online gaming market is estimated to add GBP 1.6 billion of net gaming revenue by 2016, with bingo-led online gaming estimated to account for just under a third of that market.

Cantor Fitzgerald Europe is acting as nominated adviser and broker to the company.