Oryx Gaming acquisition agreed

Online gambling software and games developer Oryx Gaming revealed Thursday that, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, it is about to be acquired by UK media and AI company Breaking Data in a Euro 7.5 million deal that includes earn-out provisions.

Breaking Data says it plans to use its subsidiary GiveMeSport and Oryx Gaming to expand into the US online sports betting market with a new brand GiveMeBet, leveraging GiveMeSports’ 26 million Facebook followers.

There are plans to rebrand Oryx as Bragg Gaming Group, which will be helmed by industry veteran Dominic Mansour as CEO. Mansour is well known in the online gambling industry and has held executive positions with many of the major companies in the space, including FullTilt poker, GTECH G2, NetPlay TV and Globalcom/WMC UK.

He will be supported by former NetPlayTV executive Akshay Kumar as CFO. The current CEO of Oryx Gaming, Matevz Mazij, will remain with the company.

The expectation is that GiveMeBet will go live at the latest by early 2019.

In a press release Thursday (see footnote) Breaking Data chief executive Nick Thain said that GiveMeBet would be developed in a similar model to that used by Sky in building Sky Betting and Gaming into an industry leader.

Mansour said that more acquisitions are planned as Bragg Gaming is developed into a “next generation gambling company.

“The newly-combined group will now have the opportunity to grow into gaming and to leverage synergies through the combination of the businesses,” Mansour said. “GiveMeSport has a bigger following on Facebook than ESPN and Sky Sports and we plan to use this as a platform to grow into sports betting initially in the UK and further into the US.”

Breaking Data shareholders will vote on the deal at the company’s annual general meeting next month.

Financing arrangements have yet to be finalised, along with stock exchange and regulatory approvals.

Full details of the deal and company performance statistics can be viewed in the press release here