Social pool betting operator i-pools has launched a new, free-to-play fantasy horseracing game with a jackpot prize of £1m (€1.2m/$1.3m), while Matt Steer has been named chief executive of the business, after it closed a new funding round.

Strong growth in revenue failed to offset the impact of growing costs for Scientific Games in 2018, with the gaming solutions provider’s loss for the period growing to $352.4m (£269.3m/€310.1m). Revenue for the 12 months ended December 31, 2018 was up 9.1% year-on-year, with a marginal decline in gaming revenue - down 0.7% to $1.8bn - offset by strong growth in the social and digital divisions.

Commercial launch of new software in the pipeline

Penn National Gaming has completed the acquisition Las Vegas-based social bingo games developer Absolute Games

Gaming Innovation Group (GiG) has entered a content partnership with mobile real-money and social games developer Gaming realms

Aristocrat Leisure has today (Thursday) entered a binding agreement to acquire social gaming company Big Fish Games for $990m (€833.9m)

Zynga has announced the launch of ‘Words With Friends 2’, the follow-up to phenomenally successful social gaming title ‘Words With Friends’

KamaGames Group has announced that it is to roll out its first HTML5 game with social media platform VK.com.