Nazara Games has picked up a 26% stake in London-based mobile gaming startup Mastermind Sports. This is its second investment after it put in an undisclosed amount in the London-based firm Truly Social, which focuses on women centric games. Mastermind Sports, founded in 2014, is a gaming studio which creates social and interactive mobile games for sports fans and has offices in London and Bengaluru. Last year, it acquired the game Matchup Cricket. Nazara Games is targeting mobile sports games through this investment.

The mobile gaming startup has launched a real-time social prediction platform for betting during live cricket matches by using virtual currency. The company launched the game, called CricBet, during the ongoing Indian Premier League season. “Sports is another core focus area. The real-time social prediction platform can be replicated for betting during various live sports other than cricket,” said Manish Agrawal, CEO of Nazara Games. CricBet is a live prediction game where users stake virtual coins on what they think is about to happen during a match.

Within the game there are eight prediction markets where one can predict the next boundary to be scored, guess the number of runs off the next over and predict whether a batsman will score more than 50 runs. The platform includes leader boards, levels, tournaments and a forum to interact with other fans. The last game to be similar in the nature of competitiveness was Fantasy Cricket, which appeared more than 10 years ago. Thomas McCall, Co-Founder of Mastermind Sports, said the company is targeting football next with this platform. “It’s not a plug-in kind of game. The IP lies in the technology used to create an interactive experience through the real-time social predictive platform,” he said.

Source: The Economic Times