Things are rolling for Double Down Interactive.
The Seattle-based maker of casino-style social games that was gobbled up by Las Vegas-based International Game Technology for as much as $500 million last year saw its second quarter revenues increase sequentially by 31 percent to $54 million. This comes after the company pulled in $128 million within 12 months following the IGT acquisition.
And today, the fast-growing upstart also announced that it’s going global with Double Down Casino, which is now available in French, German and Spanish. Previously, players from more than 30 countries used the Double Down platform in English, but now that’s changing.
“Our goal is absolutely to make Double Down Casino a global brand and global experience,” said John Clelland, VP of Global Marketing for IGT Interactive and DoubleDown Casino. “We looked at which countries had the most players and that we thought could benefit from having the experience in that language.”
The company plans to add Italian and other languages by the end of 2013, depending on the performance and feedback of this launch, Clelland said.
He also touched on the success of DoubleDown, which is impressive considering the fact that players of its casino-style games are only betting with virtual currency. The merger of IGT and its massive games library, he said, has helped in providing a more authentic Vegas gaming experience. Then, there’s the consistency aspect of it.
“We are able to bring a new slot game to players every other week,” Clelland said. “That kind of focus on new content has been one of big differentiators in allowing us to continue to grow.”
Things could get really interesting for the company if online gambling becomes legal in the States, however, only New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada have approved online gambling legislations up to this point.
Clelland said Double Down remains focused on being a social gaming company first and foremost.
“It is not something we are building our platform around,” he said of online gambling. “Our core business is very strong and we see plenty of runway for continued growth, regardless of regulatory environment in United States.”
Seattle has become sort of a hotbed for casino apps. Earlier this year, GameHouse launched its own casino on Facebook with more than a dozen games and also released a new iOS app. Then there’s Jawfish Games, which recently debuted the first-ever real-time social gaming platform that supports live tournament play for more than 100,000 users on iOS, Android and on the Web.
Jawfish CEO Phil Gordon said there are reasons why you’re seeing so many casino games on the market while other social gaming companies like Zynga struggle.
“Casino-based games monetize at four times the rate of a standard casual game,” said Gordon, a former Netsys exec and computer scientist who is perhaps best known as a professional poker player and commentator. ”It’s easy to get people to pay for virtual slots than virtual farms.”
For more on Double Down’s business growth, check out this Q&A we did with CEO Greg Enell.
Editor’s note: DoubleDown Interactive is a GeekWire annual sponsor.
