Esports Entertainment Group completes acquisitions of Helix eSports and ggCircuit

First announced in October 2020 and finalised in January this year, the agreement will see the operator pay $43.0m (£30.4m/€35.4m) to acquire the two businesses.

Esports Entertainment said the two deals significantly strengthen its ‘Play, Watch, Bet’ strategy, adding state-of-the-art esports entertainment centres, an esports-focused software business, esports analytics platform and P2P skill-based wagering platform.

“With the completed acquisition of Helix and ggCircuit, we have created the most diversified, US-listed esports entertainment asset in the entire ecosystem,” Esports Entertainment chief executive Grant Johnson said.

ggCircuit is a B2B software business that provides cloud-based management for local area network (LAN) centres, a tournament platform and integrated wallet and point-of-sale solutions. 

The business has over 1,000 connected locations and its ggLeap product has over 60 million hours of usage by over two million unique gamers on tens of thousands of public gaming screens inside centres worldwide.

Helix eSports owns five esports centres, including two of the five largest sites in the US, offering a range of experiences including casual play, competitive tournaments, STEM programming, high school leagues, large groups and esports bootcamps.

Helix also operates Genji Analytics, an esports-focused analytics provider that uses sophisticated computer vision, natural language processing and machine learning tools to delivers broadcast optimisation and talent scouting analytics.  

The acquisition also includes LANduel, Helix’s proprietary player-vs-player wagering platform that allows for skill-based wagering on third-party video games.

“These acquisitions significantly strengthen our ‘Play, Watch, Bet’ strategy, adding state-of-the-art esports entertainment centres, an esports-focused vertical enterprise software business, a best-in-class esports analytics platform, and a player-vs-player skill-based wagering platform to our diversified asset base,” Johnson said.

“Together with what we have already built, Esports Entertainment Group has unparalleled scale, and we are on our way to becoming a global industry leader.”