The UK-based gaming bookie Ladbrokes has signed a 4-year deal with Playtech software developer to offer online poker, bingo and casino content for desktop and mobile users.

The partnership with Playtech will allow Ladbroke to grow beyond its current game offer by providing a larger desktop and mobile casino portfolio. The company aims to compete against UK’s major casino operator William Hill, who has declared growing financial revenues from its mobile platform during the last 2 years.

At present, Ladbrokes offers table games and casino content from Microgaming software provider. This agreement will boost the company’s game portfolio and will certainly help to increase the existing number of players.

In order to make a smooth and fast technical transition, Playtech will provide Ladbrokes with 40 staff members to help develop the marketing platform and provide support for more than 200 games, soon-to-be added to their site.

Ladbrokes’ CEO Richard Glynn told Reuters in a news broadcast: [we are] very confident that over the next five years this is going to allow us to accelerate underlying earnings growth.

Ladbroke plans to reinforce its position as an online and mobile casino operator, expecting to outgrow its current revenues; however, the company hasn’t yet revealed how much they expect to profit in the long-run, or how long will it take to expand their mobile gambling portfolio.

‘No Win-No Fee’ deal

After the William Hill - Playtech agreement came to a bitter end, the software developer decided to take a much broader approach with Ladbrokes, giving the operator enough confidence and time to get earnings and to share revenues among both parties. After the deal was signed, both companies highlighted the following aspects:

• -Under the 4 year-agreement Playtech will receive 27.5% of the royalties generated by Ladbrokes by 2017, giving the operator enough time to develop the platform, making it functional and financially attractive.

• -If successful, Playtech will receive early payments as long as the core earnings exceed £35 million, £70 million and £100 million during the first three years of the agreement.

• -However, if the digital earnings exceed £100 million, Playtech will receive a one-off bonus of 75% of the revenue increase.

Peel Hunt, an independent advisory house that supported Playtech on the agreement, remarked that It is a high-profile deal, and as such neither party can afford for it to fail.

Ladbrokes’ online platform has approx. 800,000 active customers, supports 17 currencies and has a 24/7 customer support in 9 different languages. After the deal was signed last week, Ladbrokes’ shares increased by 6.9%, representing 240.7 pence per share and reaching their highest point in the last five years.