Cashplay takes e-sports to mobile with real-money cash tournaments

Disclosure: Cashplay sponsored a recent VentureBeat event. Our coverage remains objective.

You now have another way to make some dough while playing games.

Cashplay has launched its mobile game cash tournaments for e-sports players on mobile devices. The Czech Republic company says that its cash-for-skill events are a good way to boost retention and revenue for just about any mobile game. It does so by turning the games into competitive sports and giving out cash rewards.

In the past month, Prague-based Cashplay launched its Android and iOS apps. Now you can play more than 100 games with cash prizes, compared to just two games at the start of 2014. So far, the results are positive in terms of generating better revenue and retention, the company claims. Millions of dollars in cash tournaments have been played to date.

The overall online game market has grown four-fold from $10.1 billion worldwide in 2004 to $39.5 billion in 2014. Cashplay itself pegs its market opportunity in mobile e-sports at about $12 billion by 2017.

Cashplay sought out and received permission to operate real-money games on the App Store, and it now has permission to run mobile cash tournaments. Since starting, Cashplay has acquired several thousand daily cash players in more than 150 countries where it’s legal to receive money prizes in game tournaments. The company has created more than 100 payment options for deposits and withdrawals.

The catalog of games on Cashplay includes titles in action, puzzles, shooters, sports, and more. Within the app, users are served up the games available in their territory that can be played for real money.

In the first quarter, Cashplay will add games such as Pink Panther from MGM Studios and Brunswick Bowling from Farsight Studios. The latter is expected to combine the mobile virtual bowling experience with live bowling in hundreds of centers across the U.S.

Cashplay was founded in 2012 by veterans from real-money gambling, banking, mobile games, and online entertainment. The company opened offices in San Francisco last October, and it plans to open offices in Asia. Its app is available on Apple App Store, the Mobogenie storefront, and www.Cashplay.me. Players can create and manage accounts, connect with friends, add or redeem cash balances that work across games, and view their tournament history.

To turn a game into a real-money Cashplay game, developers integrate the software development kit. The company focuses on skill-based mobile games, rather than pure gambling random games.

Cashplay disclosed that the average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) is 52 cents. And about 16 percent of the daily active users convert to paying users. It enables three times more game sessions per daily active user, a 173 percent increase in the number of users retained for 30 days, and a 12 percent increase in in-app purchases. Cashplay is adding tens of thousands of players per week.

“As the catalog of Cashplay-enabled games expands every day, cash tournament players have asked for a central place to discover them all, learn about the latest promotions, and gain access to Cashplay exclusive content, ” said Thomas Newman, the managing director of the company, in a statement. “With our new app for iOS, players can now find all the games that automatically tie into their universal Cashplay wallet. This feature allows players to simply download games and start competing for cash immediately without having to register for games individually.”

Current games include Plumber Crack, Jet Pack Chicken, Rocket Cube, The Death Road, Black Dot Escape, Nitro Nation Drag Racing, and more. In the U.S., Cashplay’s main rival is Skillz.

“Coming from a licensed gambling background, we have processes millions of dollars safely, and our proactive approach to customer service means we have maintained an outstanding reputation,” Epps said in an email. “We consider these aspects of fraud prevention to be essential to operating a safe, long-term real money gaming platform.”