Penn National launches Penn Game Studios to offer exclusive iCasino content

Penn National Gaming is acquiring HitPoint Studios, and its spun-off real money gaming company, LuckyPoint, in order to accelerate Penn Game Studios, an in-house content development team focused on creating exclusive iCasino content for its customers. The acquisition is expected to close in the near term.

“We are incredibly excited to be launching Penn Game Studios, which is another important step in our company’s evolution into the leading omni-channel provider of retail and interactive gaming, sports betting, and entertainment. We will now have the ability to create exclusive content for our audiences, further leverage the Barstool Sports brand and our database of 20 million my choice customers, and create cross-marketing opportunities with our brick and mortar facilities,” said Jay Snowden, President & CEO of Penn National in a press release.

HitPoint, an independent game design and development studio founded in Massachusetts in 2008, has created more than fifty games for some of the publishers and brands in the industry, including Microsoft, Ellen DeGeneres, EA/PopCap, Disney, Google, and NBCUniversal. HitPoint developed platforms for real-time multiplayer casual mobile games and currently runs the day-to-day live operations for multiple games using their proprietary technology stack.

HitPoint continues as LuckyPoint to center on real-money game development and the creation and operation of a remote gaming server. The LuckyPoint RGS brings a variety of gaming styles to desktop and mobile devices, including retro-style arcade games and puzzle games, besides traditional online casino table games and slot machines.

Paul Hake, CEO of HitPoint said: “We are thrilled to be joining Penn National and bringing our expertise to the Company’s interactive division. We look forward to adding our creativity, design, and engineering skills to an already well-accomplished team at Penn National.”

The team of 30 employees from HitPoint and LuckyPoint will be integrated into Penn National’s wholly-owned interactive division, Penn Interactive, once the acquisition is completed. The team is comprised of designers, artists, and engineers.