Interactive

Sweden – Scientific continues acquisition streak with ELK Studios

By William - 1 December 2021

Scientific Games has strengthened its original iGaming content offering and production capabilities with the acquisition of ELK Studios.

ELK Studios is a Stockholm-based developer with a history of producing carefully crafted games with impressive mathematics and artwork with a mobile-first focus. The digital studio’s hit releases include Wild Toro II, Katmandu and Cygnus, and its games also feature the X-iter tool allowing players to jump into the action through a selection of special predefined modes.

The acquisition is the latest in a string of content-focused deals as SG moves quickly to invest in and grow its presence in digital markets. By adding ELK Studios to its in-house games portfolio, the company says it has ‘further bolstered its capacity for creating innovative, engaging iGaming content and will be looking to take ELK’s top-ranked content into the U.S. and Canadian markets while further enhancing its position as a leading content provider in the U.K. and Europe’.

“Acquiring ELK Studios demonstrates once again our commitment to make targeted, value enhancing investments designed to advance our cross-platform content capabilities,” said 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.”

ELK Studios is already live with a range of operators through the OpenGaming ecosystem, with its titles proving popular with operators across the U.K. and Europe. The studio will continue to work independently to create new titles, while also benefiting from Scientific Games’ resources including commercial scale, market expansion, support in U.S. and Canada, game IP and data analytics tools.

“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,” said Dylan Slaney, CEO iGaming at Scientific Games.

“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.”

Filip Säfbeck at 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 U.S. and Canada are in total alignment.

“We have experienced first-hand through our OpenGaming partnership that Scientific Games can take our games to the next level. This acquisition offers us a solid base to bring to market a wide range of exciting new slots more smoothly than ever to online casino partners across the globe.”