Scientific Games has today announced the acquisition ELK Studios, strengthening the company’s iGaming and original content offering as well as its production capabilities.
The acquisition of this Stockholm-based developer sees Scientific Games gain the rights to a number of popular games including Wild Toro II, and Cygnus. Moreover, the gaming giant will gain control of ELK's X-iter tool, allowing players to enter games through a number of special predefined modes.
In return, ELK will be further integrated into the OpenGaming platform, while benefiting from Scientific Games’ range of commercial-scale, market expansion, and data analytics tools.
"Acquiring ELK Studios demonstrates once again our commitment to make targeted, value-enhancing investments designed to advance our cross-platform content capabilities," noted Barry Cottle, President and CEO of Scientific Games.
"The ELK Studios team is packed with talent and enhances our existing in-house teams and capabilities. The highly synergistic combination of their top-ranked games and our leading OpenGaming ecosystem offers exciting distribution opportunities in the U.S. and Canada. I am thrilled to welcome them to our team."
This agreement marks the latest in a series of content-focused acquisitions for Scientific Games, as the company looks to expand its position in both the US and Canadian gaming markets while further strengthening its European offering.
Dylan Slaney, CEO iGaming at Scientific Games, said: "We have had a strategic partnership with ELK Studios for a number of years and its games have performed brilliantly across the OpenGaming platform. ELK is one of the most innovative, and top-ranked studios in iGaming.
“Their passion and enthusiasm for producing games of stand-out quality is infectious. They will play a pivotal role in helping us continue to provide players with even more immersive and engaging experiences."
While this news sees Scientific Games takeover the Swedish studio, ELK is set to continue independent operations via the OpenGaming platform.
Filip Säfbeck of ELK Studios added: "This deal is the fruit of many years of hard work by a team that is fully committed to crafting high-quality online gaming experiences. We see it as the perfect time to join the Scientific Games team, given that our ambitions to grow through innovation and into the US and Canada are in total alignment.”
