{"id":178705,"date":"2021-07-06T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T13:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=178705"},"modified":"2021-07-07T08:39:46","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T15:39:46","slug":"atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Atari Scraps Online Casino, Takes $6M Charge on Lost Effort"},"content":{"rendered":"

Video game giant Atari’s foray into the world of online casinos was a brief one. The company announced Monday turning its focus to premium games and closing its casino in Africa.<\/p>\n

\"Atari
The famous Atari 2600 video game console, seen above. The company is dropping its online casino to focus on premium games. (Image: Amazon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a statement released on Monday, the company said it’s shifting its focus away from free-to-play mobile games as part of its latest turnaround strategy. The company will focus on premium gaming, which is a better representation of the company, Atari CEO Wade J. Rosen said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The strategy also includes scrapping its online casino.<\/p>\n

In order to efficiently allocate its resources to the success of this new strategy, Atari has decided to exit its direct operations of Atari Casino in Africa,\u201d<\/strong> according to a statement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Paris-based company said it’s taking a $5.93 million charge for the financial period ending March 31, 2021, as a result of the move. Its board of directors on July 1 approved the shift in strategy for the Atari Gaming business, the unit where the internet casino resides.<\/p>\n

Atari revealed plans for the casino in March<\/a>, noting at the time it would be developed in partnership with Decentral Games and launched on the Ethereum blockchain. That leveraged it to two hot themes – iGaming and cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n

Atari Casino Gaming Ambitions May Be Halted<\/h2>\n

It wasn’t that long ago that the video game company known for such iconic titles as Asteroids, Centipede<\/span> Missile Command, <\/em>and Pong<\/em> harbored casino gaming ambitions.<\/p>\n

Before the online casino was revealed earlier this year, the company said in early 2020 it was planning a chain of luxury hotels around the world, with Las Vegas being one of the slated destinations. The hotels were to be themed after Atari video games and potentially aimed to capture some of the booming esports market<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, the latest release on the hotels on Atari’s website is dated last October and the company doesn’t mention the hotel project in its July 5 statement. It does, however, note material changes to its free-to-play games model.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAtari intends to shift its video game portfolio to premium games for consoles and PC. While the competitive and marketing environment is weighing on the free-to-play business model, five free-to-play games will be discontinued or sold (RCT Stories, Crystal Castles, Castles & Catapults, Ninja Golf, Atari Combat: Tank Fury),\u201d said the company.<\/p>\n

Still Plenty of Reasons for iGaming Optimism<\/h2>\n

While Atari is abandoning its internet casino platform, there are still plenty of reasons to be bullish on the industry’s trajectory. For example, CFRA Research said last month the North American online casinos and sports wagering market could vault to $42 billion<\/a> over the next several years.<\/p>\n

Add to that, Goldman Sachs said<\/a> earlier this year online sports betting and internet casinos could jump to $39 billion and $14 billion, respectively, by 2033.<\/p>\n

Industry analysts and executives see iGaming not only providing a long runway for growth but materially superior margins and profitability relative to both sports wagering and land-based casinos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Video game giant Atari’s foray into the world of online casinos was a brief one. The company announced Monday turning its focus to premium games and closing its casino in Africa. In a statement released on Monday, the company said it’s shifting its focus away from free-to-play mobile games as part of its latest turnaround […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":178706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33810,19],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAtari Online Casino Scrapped as Company Focuses on Premium Games<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Atari is getting out of the online casino business and will instead focus on premium games.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Atari Online Casino Scrapped as Company Focuses on Premium Games\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Atari is getting out of the online casino business and will instead focus on premium games.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-07-06T13:00:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-07-07T15:39:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/atari.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1126\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Todd Shriber\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@etfgodfather\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Todd Shriber\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/\",\"name\":\"Atari Online Casino Scrapped as Company Focuses on Premium Games\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/atari.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-07-06T13:00:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-07-07T15:39:46+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f4cecf70a5032bc4e60eb73fc86d4a85\"},\"description\":\"Atari is getting out of the online casino business and will instead focus on premium games.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/atari.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/atari.jpg\",\"width\":1500,\"height\":1126,\"caption\":\"The famous Atari 2600 video game console. The company is dropping its online casino to focus on premium games. (Image: Amazon)\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"News\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Gaming Business\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gaming-business\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Atari Scraps Online Casino, Takes $6M Charge on Lost Effort\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Casino.org\",\"description\":\"Latest Casino and Gaming News\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f4cecf70a5032bc4e60eb73fc86d4a85\",\"name\":\"Todd Shriber\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-11-96x96.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-11-96x96.png\",\"caption\":\"Todd Shriber\"},\"description\":\"Todd Shriber is a senior news reporter covering gaming financials, casino business, stocks, and mergers and acquisitions for Casino.org. Todd got his start in financial markets as a reporter with Bloomberg News. Later, he became a trader at a Southern California-based long\/short hedge fund, where he specialized in the trading sector and international ETFs leading up to and during the financial crisis. He joined Casino.org in 2019. Currently, Todd analyzes, researches, and writes on ETFs for various web-based publications and financial services firms. Shriber has been featured and quoted in Barron's, CNBC.com, and The Wall Street Journal. His work can also be found on Benzinga, ETF Daily News, ETF Trends, MarketWatch, Fox Business, and Nasdaq.com. He currently resides in Las Vegas, where he enjoys golf and taking his black lab to the dog park. He's also an avid sports fan and likes to wager on college football and the NBA. You can also find him at the three-card poker and roulette table, even though he knows better. Contact Todd at todd.shriber@casino.org.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/muckrack.com\/todd-shriber\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/toddshriber\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/etfgodfather\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/todd-shriber\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Atari Online Casino Scrapped as Company Focuses on Premium Games","description":"Atari is getting out of the online casino business and will instead focus on premium games.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Atari Online Casino Scrapped as Company Focuses on Premium Games","og_description":"Atari is getting out of the online casino business and will instead focus on premium games.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/","og_site_name":"Casino.org","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews","article_published_time":"2021-07-06T13:00:26+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-07-07T15:39:46+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1500,"height":1126,"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/atari.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Todd Shriber","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@etfgodfather","twitter_site":"@Casino_Org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Todd Shriber","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/","name":"Atari Online Casino Scrapped as Company Focuses on Premium Games","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/atari.jpg","datePublished":"2021-07-06T13:00:26+00:00","dateModified":"2021-07-07T15:39:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f4cecf70a5032bc4e60eb73fc86d4a85"},"description":"Atari is getting out of the online casino business and will instead focus on premium games.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/atari.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/atari.jpg","width":1500,"height":1126,"caption":"The famous Atari 2600 video game console. The company is dropping its online casino to focus on premium games. (Image: Amazon)"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/atari-online-casino-scrapped-as-company-focuses-on-premium-games\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"News","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Gaming Business","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gaming-business\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Atari Scraps Online Casino, Takes $6M Charge on Lost Effort"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/","name":"Casino.org","description":"Latest Casino and Gaming News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f4cecf70a5032bc4e60eb73fc86d4a85","name":"Todd Shriber","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-11-96x96.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-11-96x96.png","caption":"Todd Shriber"},"description":"Todd Shriber is a senior news reporter covering gaming financials, casino business, stocks, and mergers and acquisitions for Casino.org. Todd got his start in financial markets as a reporter with Bloomberg News. Later, he became a trader at a Southern California-based long\/short hedge fund, where he specialized in the trading sector and international ETFs leading up to and during the financial crisis. He joined Casino.org in 2019. Currently, Todd analyzes, researches, and writes on ETFs for various web-based publications and financial services firms. Shriber has been featured and quoted in Barron's, CNBC.com, and The Wall Street Journal. His work can also be found on Benzinga, ETF Daily News, ETF Trends, MarketWatch, Fox Business, and Nasdaq.com. He currently resides in Las Vegas, where he enjoys golf and taking his black lab to the dog park. He's also an avid sports fan and likes to wager on college football and the NBA. You can also find him at the three-card poker and roulette table, even though he knows better. Contact Todd at todd.shriber@casino.org.","sameAs":["https:\/\/muckrack.com\/todd-shriber","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/toddshriber\/","https:\/\/x.com\/etfgodfather"],"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/todd-shriber\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}