Betable is a

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

-based company that develops and markets a real-money

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...

platform Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system or ...

for the social gaming industry. The company is licensed by the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

Gambling Commission The Gambling Commission is an executive non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for regulating gambling and supervising gaming law in Great Britain. Its remit covers arcades, betting, bingo, casinos, ...

and the

Alderney Gambling Control Commission Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) was established in May 2000. The Commission is independent and non political, and regulates eGambling on behalf of the States of Alderney. The Commission ensures that its regulatory and supervisory appro ...

and is certified by third-party testing houses. The company has raised a total of $23 million in venture funding from, among others, Venture51,

Greylock Partners Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1965, with committed capital of over $3.5 billion under management. The firm focuses on early-stage companies in the consumer, enterprise software and infrastructure as wel ...

, and

Founders Fund Founders Fund is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. Formed in 2005, Founders Fund had more than $11 billion in aggregate capital under management as of 2022. The firm invests across all stages and sectors, including aerospace, artificia ...

History

Christopher Griffin, the company’s current CEO, founded Betable in 2008. The first iteration of the service involved users creating betting opportunities and placing bets on a central, social-oriented gambling site. In July 2010 the company raised $3 million in

seed funding Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...

from

Atomico Ventures Atomico is a European Venture Capital firm headquartered in London, with offices in Paris, and Stockholm. Its founder and CEO is Niklas Zennström, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded Skype and Kazaa. History and investments It has invested ...

. In 2012, Griffin re-capped the company and re-launched Betable from being a betting site to developing a real-money gambling platform. The Betable API beta program was released in July 2012, allowing game developers to integrate Betable betting features. In October 2012, Betable partnered with game developers Slingo,

Digital Chocolate Digital Chocolate, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher headquartered in San Mateo, California. It was founded in 2003 by Trip Hawkins, the founder of video game companies Electronic Arts and The 3DO Company. The company focused on devel ...

, and Murka Games to incorporate betting into the developers' current offerings. In November 2012, Mandala Games became the first European game developer to use the Betable platform, enabling real-money play in its title ''Slots by La Riviera''. In November 2013, Betable raised an $18.5 million

Series A A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

funding round led by Venture51.

TechCrunch April Fools' slot machine

On 1 April 2013, news website TechCrunch published a hoax article claiming that it would be launching a social betting game for venture capitalists to gamble at, remarking that it would be "an even easier way to bypass SEC regulations around being an accredited investor". The article included a TechCrunch-themed

slot machine A slot machine (American English), fruit machine (British English) or poker machine (Australian English and New Zealand English) is a gambling machine that creates a game of chance for its customers. Slot machines are also known pejoratively a ...

that was powered by Betable software.

Products and services

Third-party game developers use the Betable

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

to apply real-money gambling functionality to

mobile games A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to ...

. In addition to converting standard games (such as slots,

blackjack Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This fami ...

, and

roulette Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...

) into real-money gambling titles, the software can be used to create non-traditional types of gambling games that operate on top of the Betable platform. Once installed, Betable acts as a

turnkey A turnkey, a turnkey project, or a turnkey operation (also spelled turn-key) is a type of project that is constructed so that it can be sold to any buyer as a completed product. This is contrasted with build to order, where the constructor builds ...

gaming engine that manages all real-money tasks within a game such as identity verification, anti-fraud safeguards, regulatory compliance, transactions, auditing, and gambling mechanics. The platform acts as an alternative to other forms of app monetization, such as

banner ads A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking ...

freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (o ...

models, by allowing developers to enable revenue-generating betting features within their games. Because Betable possesses gambling licenses from the United Kingdom Gambling Commission that allow it to provide gambling services on another party's behalf, developers can enable betting within their games without applying for any licenses themselves. Betable is compatible with games on

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and Android

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

Battle Keno

One example of a traditional gaming title being converted to a real-money gambling app through Betable's platform is 30AK Gaming's ''Battle Keno'', an adaptation of ''

Battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

'' that financially rewards or penalizes players based on gameplay.

Prospect Hall Casino

In February 2015, Betable launched Prospect Hall Casino, a UK

online gambling Online gambling is any kind of gambling conducted on the internet. This includes virtual poker, casinos and sports betting. The first online gambling venue opened to the general public was ticketing for the Liechtenstein International Lottery in ...

business with

online casino Online casinos, also known as virtual casinos or Internet casinos, are online versions of traditional ("brick and mortar") casinos. Online casinos enable gamblers to play and wager on casino games through the Internet. It is a prolific form of o ...

games for mobile and web. The business is licensed and regulated by the United Kingdom

and the

References

{{reflist, 30em

External links

''Betable.com''
– Official website
''Betable''
— LinkedIn Page
Betable
—

Facebook Page Facebook is a social-network service website launched on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. The following is a list of software and technology features that can be found on the Facebook website and mobile app and are available to users of ...

Christopher Griffin
— LinkedIn Page Online gambling companies of the United Kingdom Mobile game companies Hotel and leisure companies based in London Social software