Betting platform Luckbox, owned by Real Luck Group, has suspended all betting and player registrations, effective immediately, the company disclosed in a corporate release.
Real Luck Group said the shutdown was due to a lack of new funding as well as a proposed merger or acquisition not going through. The group said it was “unable to secure the required capital injection due to challenging conditions in the capital markets.”
As a result, Luckbox’s B2C services have shut down, with the platform shifting towards its B2B activities.
Luckbox is a well-known betting company operating in the esports space, offering real-world cash betting on esports titles for several years.
Luckbox has been scaling steadily, hiring top talent from the esports industry since 2018. The company hired former Red Bull Head of Content Nevzat Ucar as well as 888.com’s Economic and Performance Team Leader Ran Kaspi in the past, and had several multi-million investment rounds, with the latest amounting to $17.8m in 2021.
Earlier this year, Luckbox CEO Thomas Rosander claimed that the company was on on the right trajectory to achieve profitability by the end of Q2 2023. However, whilst Luckbox has seen growth in terms of revenue, its associated costs and losses have risen — CAD$6.9m (~£4.14m) in H1 2023 compared to ~CAD$4m (~£2.4m) in H1 2022.
Last month, Real Luck Group announced that it had signed a LOI for a potential merger or acquisition. According to the announcement at the time, this was meant to provide an initial capital injection by the end of September.
However, the company has not highlighted that the potential transactions that were under consideration are “not viable and currently not in the best interest of the company”, instead electing to shut down the B2C platform and reimburse all Luckbox users.
This is, however, not the end. The company noted that it wants to shift operations and undergo a restructuring, moving towards a B2B model instead of the current B2C one. The shift is aimed to cut costs and should be finished before year’s end.
The company has also decided to wind up Real Time Game Services Ltd, one of its indirect subsidiaries.
