It was a busy April for Scientific Games. The company has launched the initial public offering of its social gaming business, putting up 22 million shares of the company to be called SciPlay. A week later, it launched OpenSports, a new end-to-end sports betting portfolio of products and services built around the company’s leading OpenBet technology, and announced a new partnership with Wynn Resorts.
Scientific Games’ newly named social gaming division SciPlay announced the beginning of its initial public offering of 22 million shares of Class A common stock, the price expected to be between $14 and $16 per share.
SciPlay expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 3.3 million shares of its Class A common stock at the initial public offering price. The shares are expected to trade on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol SCPL.
Scientific Games officials said the company raised more than $350 million through the offering. David Katz of Jefferies wrote a note predicting that Scientific Games’ debt-to-EBITDA could be reduced a quarter turn, assuming those return predictions are accurate.
SciPlay announced that it expects to post a profit between $13 million and $15 million for the first quarter compared with a loss of $1.1 million in the same period last year, according to preliminary numbers published last month. The unit’s first-quarter revenue will rise to between $117 million and $119 million compared with $97.5 in the same period last year, an increase of 22 percent.
Meanwhile, Scientific Games has launched OpenSports, the company’s new suite of sports betting technology.
OpenSports signals the transformation of SG’s sports book product vision through an enhanced stack of solutions and speed-to-market delivery with player experience at the core of the proposition. The completely redesigned sports book solution offers customers a modular portfolio of products that can be mixed and matched to meet specific needs:
- OpenBet remains the core sports betting technology solution, the backbone on which a sports book can operate through SG Digital’s proprietary betting engines tested for scale through global sporting events;
- OpenPlatform provides world-class, fully compliant player account and wallet services and functionality;
- OpenTrade, powered by recently acquired Don Best Sports, offers 360-degree managed trading services including pricing, odds and feeds;
- OpenEngage powers sports book operators with player-focused flexible and innovative interfaces for digital (mobile apps, mobile web and desktop) and retail (SSBT, EPOS and Content Display); and,
- OpenAccelerate helps operators implement, manage and run the day-to-day business of their sports books. A team of experienced industry personnel designs and executes critical strategy and world-class performance across acquisition, retention and player engagement.
The new technology will have at least one very high-profile user. In a separate release, the company announced a partnership with Wynn Resorts, supporting the launch of Wynn Resorts’ unique digital sports betting and iGaming applications in the U.S.
Wynn Resorts intends to initially launch in New Jersey and utilize several Scientific Games products and services, including a sports betting and iGaming system, a managed sports trading service, and Scientific Games’ market-leading content aggregation system that is home to more than 2,000 digital games such as 88 Fortunes, Raging Rhino, Zeus and more.
It will be the first foray into New Jersey iGaming and sports betting for Wynn, which does not operate a casino in Atlantic City.
