About this app
What is Hammerstorm?
It marks Spotlight’s first expansion into gaming, combining the company’s global product and content distribution with Engage Games’ platform and track record in free-to-play and pay-to-play games.
Spotlight said the decision to enter the gaming sphere comes as operators increasingly turn towards free-to-play games as a means of “engagement, retention, reactivation and acquisition”.
The games will include fantasy, predictor, survivor and bet builder mechanics, while racing titles will be powered by Spotlight’s Smart View Engine.
What is Hammerstorm?
Sports betting in Morocco, including online betting and virtual events, is reserved to state-owned Marocaine des Jeux et des Sports (MDJS). The company is 90% held by the Treasury and chaired by the sports minister.
Its exclusivity reportedly runs to 2036 under an unpublished 2016 convention with the state. The commercial operation is run under a tendered management contract rather than a licence. Unauthorised gaming houses and lotteries are criminal offences under articles 282 to 285 of the penal code.
MDJS has turned to the courts to challenge offshore betting. On 12 January the Casablanca commercial court, sitting in summary proceeding, ordered Maroc Telecom, Orange Maroc and Inwi to block 19 named betting sites and local payment intermediaries. Non-compliance carried a penalty of MAD10,000 a day.
How to play Hammerstorm
For years, the gambling industry’s investment story was built on a simple promise: more betting would mean more growth. That story is now becoming harder to sell.
Entain’s removal from the FTSE 100 is a telling sign of what has happened to gambling stocks across both Europe and the US in recent years. The company’s shares have fallen sharply over the past year, even as its first-half results showed continued growth in several important markets.
In the six months to June, Entain’s online net gaming revenue rose 7% in constant currency. Revenue in Britain and Ireland increased 13%, while the company maintained its full-year guidance for online net gaming revenue growth of 5% to 7%. So why is its stock price still so under pressure?
