SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Virtual sports producer Highlight Games has further strengthened its status in the Turkish market via a multi-year partnership with Sisal Sans – a joint venture between Italy’s Sisal and Turkey’s Demirören Holding.
Under the terms of the agreement, Highlight will supply Sisal Sans retail venues with games featuring real and exclusive archive football footage.
The group’s Soccerbet product will include Turkish football league content, including material from the top-flight Super Lig, under the ‘Serbest Vurus Pro’ brand.
Soccerbet has been made available in over 650 Sisal Sans shops, and is expected to be launched in a further 2,000 retail locations by the end of Q2 2021.
“Highlight Games is proud to announce this transformative deal and to lead the way into Turkish National Lottery retail venues,” said Steven Holmes, Co-CEO of Highlight Games.
“We have built strong business relationships in Turkey over the past two years, and the fruition of this partnership with Sisal Sans is an exciting result. This deal signals a first for legal virtual sports on the Turkish mainland, built on the strength of performance of Highlight’s games in Sisal venues in Italy and Morocco and the differentiated product we can offer which is specifically tailored to the market with archive Turkish League football footage.”
In addition, Highlight Games will provide its English and Italian variants of Soccerbet, both available in the respective languages later in the year, as well as its NBA Last 60 product.
“Sisal Sans is delighted to be partnering with Highlight Games to bring its unique portfolio of content to Turkish retail venues,” commented Selim Ergün, CEO of Sisal Sans.
“Video virtual sports engage players like no other product in the virtual sports space and we are confident that our players in Turkey will respond to these games as they have in our Italian and Moroccan venues.”
Highlight Games is currently embarking on a strategy of commercial expansion across Europe, having recently maximised its position in the Greek market via an agreement with Novibet, which saw its suite of titles launch across the group’s online and mobile platforms.
This followed an expansion of its presence in the Croatian betting space, having secured a deal with local firm SuperSport, and in January its virtual video sports offerings were rolled out in Romania after the country’s regulatory authority granted the London-based company a gambling license.
Holmes added: “I am confident that our lead football product will replicate the success of our Italian Serie A game in Italy, and I look forward to working with our partners in Turkey to bring additional products to market in the near future.”’
