| Home | About Us | Our Brands | B2B | Corporate | Contact |  |
Company History
2005
Playsafe Holding AS was acquired by the founders in 2005 and converted to a single purpose investment company focusing exclusively on the online gaming sector. The original founders secured sufficient financing to establish the basis for further growth and the subsequent share issue in 2006.
Prior to the share issue, the company had secured a series of conditional acquisition agreements to purchase several online gaming brands like, among others:
www.grandbankscasino.com
www.sterlinghousecasino.com
www.breakawaycasino.com
www.scificasino.com
www.blackwidowcasino.com
www.connectocasino.com
These acquisitions were all conditional on the private placement to be executed in 2006.
2006
Playsafe Holding AS contracted top financial advisor Pareto Securities ASA and Norden Capital Partners AS to facilitate raising NOK 132 million to make acquisitions of online gaming properties. The placement was finalized late April 2006.
The arrival of the UIGEA in October 2006 introduced a completely new landscape for online gaming. The US market had for many years been perceived as "the Holy Grail" to online gaming, and many companies were in fact building their entire business on the US market. Basically the new legislation, introduced on the back of the Safe Ports Act, established a ban on US banks and monetary processors to fund companies operating in the online gaming market. Effective immediately, all stock market listed companies adapted to the new law and stopped talking wagers from the USA. In the aftermath of the UIGEA, two consequences are apparent. Firstly, the companies that stopped taking bets from the US lost revenue and market share, and those who continued to take bets, mostly private companies, gained tremendous momentum. There was a huge shift in "world domination" within the online gaming market. It still remains to be seen if this blunt disregard for the law will eventually have any longer term consequences for those who chose not to abide. The second consequence is that the competition for the remaining markets grew more and more fierce as companies previously working towards the US started to pour their marketing budgets onto the European market.
Late November 2006, Playsafe Holding acquired the Action Poker Network from Las Vegas from Home.com Entertainment Plc. The acquisition included the top tier poker brands like, actionpoker.com, tigergaming.com and pokerincanada.com, as well as 40 odd licensees on the network. Even today, the core of Playsafe’s business is the Action Poker Network.
2007
The year 2007 saw yet another blow to the industry, as two previous directors and founders of the leading online wallet companies for the online gaming industry, were arrested in the US.
In traditional US style, the move was all about money, and the two founders were later released after a cash settlement with US Department of Justice. More dramatically for Playsafe was the fact that Neteller, originally a Canadian company, ceased payment processing from Canada in order to prevent similar repercussions from the Canadian authorities. This event had significant impact on the Action Poker Network as we have a very large Canadian customer base and Neteller was completely dominant in the Canadian market.
On the positive side, Playsafe bought the proprietary rights and source code to an online casino suite from Rival Gaming. This solution was embedded in the poker platform during latter parts of 2007, leading to a significant increase in revenue. This investment had an exceptional ROI for Playsafe.
2008
During 2008 Playsafe added several top-level marketing staff, including former executives from Pokerstars.com and BetonSport, to develop and launch new online poker brands like milliondollarpokerclub.com and paynorake.com. A number of high profiled events and campaigns were launched during the course of Q1 to Q3 2008.
General market downturn, revenue decrease from our online brands, failed launch of milliondollarpokerclub.com and large operational expenses in our operating company, led the management to execute a complete reorganization of Playsafe and its subsidiaries in Q4 08. This was the start of a continuing process that was concluded June 2009.
2009
Playsafe has seen two main events in 2009. Firstly, after more than a year in development and testing, we have finally launched the ActionStation, an online poker and casino terminal intended for regulated casino and gaming environments. The terminal was officially launched in August and has been very well received by the market. The official world launch will be at the 2010 International Casino Exhibition in London.
The second main event of the year was the signing of a JV agreement with Funworld AG of Austria, one of the largest and most successful producers of play-for-fun online terminals and betting stations in the world. With more than 160,000 terminals sold in the last two decades, it offers a unique distribution channel for new online games content.
