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As part of the accord, MLB will supply FutureSports with official league data “that the company will use to create new broad-based CME FutureSports Performance Indexes (FSPI)” on each MLB team. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.
CME Group (NASDAQ: CME) and the index provider announced a partnership in July. With the MLB deal in place, the exchange operator will offer derivatives based on the baseball indexes.
“The agreement paves the way for CME Group to list weekly, monthly and quarterly cash-settled futures contracts, pending regulatory review, based on the CME FSPI MLB benchmarks,” according to a statement issued by FutureSports.
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signals how far Pragmatic Play is willing to push iteration on a recognizable mechanical family
A fourth Halloween variant in one series also signals how far Pragmatic Play is willing to push iteration on a recognizable mechanical family. Familiarity is the point. Each seasonal skin trades on established player recognition rather than introducing a new core experience.
Whether players see genuine value or diminishing returns from a fourth spooky variant is a fair question. The commercial logic, though, is clear. Big Bass Splash Halloween 1000 is less a new chapter than an on-schedule seasonal refresh of a franchise Pragmatic Play has every incentive to keep in circulation.
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Macquarie’s Beynon agrees with that sentiment, pointing to the relative stability of gaming companies through tough economic stretches such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Bankruptcies in the sector have been low relative to the broader market, he notes, and both land-based and digital companies have reason for optimism moving forward.
“It’s certainly not lost on us that this sector has underperformed for several years in a row just because it doesn’t have either the growth of say, tech companies, or the perceived free cash flow-insulated businesses, which we believe it does…We’ve thought there’s been value in the sector for a few years, particularly this year,” he told iGB.
Jess has covered the global gaming industry since 2022. A native of Reno, Nevada, he’d like to note that it’s Ne-va-da, not Ne-VAH-da.