Striking Hot 5

About Striking Hot 5

Ahlberg agrees the €16.4 million valuation is attractive, with a deferred consideration of around €10.4 million that reduces the immediate cash burden.

Corfai Capital Managing Partner and Founder Ben Robinson is even more bullish on the price, pointing to the circumstances in which GiG was able to acquire the business.

“On the numbers GiG has disclosed it looks cheap,” he says. “€16.4 million for 80% implies an EV of €20.5 million against roughly $50 million of run-rate NGR, 30% year-on-year growth and positive cash generation. €6m of cash on day one for a business generating $50 million of NGR tells you who needed the deal.”

What is Striking Hot 5?

“We’re very encouraged with the trajectory of that, but we’re still not where we want to be. But a lot of the work, or some of the work has been done, and we have a lot more planned for the rest of the year. So bear with us. It is happening.”

Bengtsson said the split between casino and sports betting for SunBet was roughly 90% to 10% in favour of casino, with Sun International “under-indexing on sportsbook”.

But Sun International views that as an opportunity, with Bengtsson stating: “We think the market overall is probably somewhere around 35%-40% sportsbook.

What is Striking Hot 5?

Lower barriers to entry could significantly widen the pool of potential game creators. Curwen sees opportunities not only for established and emerging studios, but for operators, suppliers, entrepreneurs and potentially entirely new entrants.

“The big change is that technology can increasingly provide the infrastructure,” he says. “The creator provides the idea. And I think that will make the industry much more interesting.”

For Yggdrasil, Game in a Box and Studio in a Box are therefore intended to become more than tools for its own development operation. Curwen envisages them supporting a wider creator ecosystem, although he acknowledges that proving the model commercially must come first.