Dragonfish Helping Boost Swedish Online Bingo Scene

Just under a year ago, online gambling group 888 Holdings decided to dive deeper into the world of online bingo, acquiring the well-established Wink Bingo and attaching it to their B2B arm Dragonfish. As an online gambling software solutions provider, Dragonfish provides online casinos and bingo sites with access to a library of over 1000 games and a global network of internet gamblers.

888’s Q3 income is stagnant over last year, with Dragonfish profits dropping from US$13m in Q3 2009 to US$9m this year, due mostly to the acquisition of Wink Bingo late last year. This acquisition, however, helped the group’s B2C profits increase, especially in the bingo sector, rising from $3m to $13m year-on-year. Much of this was due to the Wink acquisition, but another contributing factor was the launch of Dragonfish-powered online bingo games in Sweden.

Now, online gambling group PartyGaming is also offering Dragonfish-powered internet bingo in Sweden. The site launched earlier this month. Partygaming saw bingo revenues drop quarter-on-quarter this year, but with the Swedish bingo launch, as well as new online gambling offerings in France, they remain confident.

The popularity of bingo in Sweden is due in part to the fact that it is one of the only forms of gambling not controlled by the local gambling monopoly, Svenka Spel. Because Swedish gambling laws allow operators to offer offline and online bingo, the game has flourished. There are more than 100 offline bingo halls in Sweden, and many dozen online sites that cater to Swedish players. Local options include Svenka Spel internet bingo, as well as offerings from the popular BingoLotto charity lottery, but most Swedish bingo websites are in fact foreign-hosted.