Type of site Gambling Industry Internet Registration Yes Number of employees 900 Users 40 million+ | Traded as Gamesys Ltd Website www.gamesys.co.uk Founded 2001 Type of business Private | |
 | ||
Commercial free, but with a charge for extra features Subsidiaries Jackpotjoy, Virgin Games, Mice and Dice Ltd Founders Andrew Dixon, Robin Tombs, Noel Hayden Profiles | ||
The Gamesys Group is a software developer and operator and currently operates several online social and real money slots in the United Kingdom and other European countries, along with casino and bingo sites on both web and mobile and tablet. More recently Gamesys and Facebook launched the first online real cash gaming applications on their platform. The company was founded in 2001 by Noel Hayden, Robin Tombs, Andrew Dixon and a small team of developers. They currently employ 900 people with headquarters based in Central London.
Contents
Across the group in 2012, wagering was over US $6.4 billion on their largest UK site, paying out in excess of $312 million in prize money every month.
Acquisitions have included Virgin Games, and partnerships include Tropicana Entertainment, Caesars, Heart. Gamesys was listed by the magazine eGaming Review as the fifth in their "eGR Power50" list of online gaming companies.
The group now includes:
Industry awards
Gamesys was named as the UK’s number 1 fastest-growing private technology company in the Sunday Times 2006 Tech Track 100. In the 2007 listing, Gamesys was ranked at 28. The Tech Track 100 is compiled by Fast Track and ranks Britain’s fastest growing unquoted technology firms by sales.
Websites
The Group's primary soft-gaming brand is Jackpotjoy.com which offers both free-to-play and pay-to-play versions of their games. The games are browser-based and do not require a download. Jackpotjoy has launched games based around classic UK TV game shows including The Price Is Right, Strike It Lucky and Deal or No Deal. The company has licensed its software to a Spanish company under the Botemania brand.
The company has a contract with Harrah's Entertainment, the owners of Caesars Palace, for the CaesarsBingo.com site and Games.Heart.co.uk, which is the gaming site for Heart FM radio.
The Spanish site botemania.es is also part of the Gamesys network.
Gamesys Limited’s Jackpotjoy brand and other assets were sold to Canadian online gaming company, Intertain Group on 5 February 2015 for an initial payment of £425.8 million with additional payments to be made between years three and five. The sale price consists of a combination of cash, share considerations and cash earn out payments.
As a result of the sale, Intertain now owns both the UK and Swedish Jackpotjoy brands, UK brand Star Spins, Spanish brand Botemania plus the Jackpotjoy Slots and Star Spins Slots social gaming apps. Another aspect of the deal includes a service agreement in which Gamesys will remain onboard under the terms of a service agreement to provide end-to-end technical, marketing and operational services across the brands for a period of ten years with a clause for the possibility to license gaming content for another ten years.