After just four months since launching its joint venture social betting game Sportster ‘betandwin’ with games publisher Nordeus, bwin.party has announced the closure of the Facebook social betting game. The operator sent the following communication to Sportster customers
“Dear users, we are sorry to inform you that we are shutting Sportster down on January 30th.Please note, that you will not be able to log into the game after the scheduled date,”
Launched on 30 September, the social betting game was developed in a joint collaboration between social games publisher Nordeus and bwin.party’s social gaming development studio Win. The partnership aimed to extend the sports betting operators social coverage and product portfolio
The closure of the Facebook game, comes weeks after bwin.party announced that it was in active discussions regarding the potential sale of Win development studios. The operator declared that it would no longer fund its planned €50 million investment in the social gaming developer.
The closure of Sportster continues sports betting operators difficulties in creating socially led gaming verticals. In December 2014 Paddy Power announced that it had terminated its real money Facebook app after the product failed to reach company expectations.
bwin.party have yet to make a public statement regarding the closure of the Sportster Facebook game.