The Game Within The Game: Lucra Establishes B2B Presence with Blockbuster Dave and Buster’s Deal

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 30, 2024--

Today, Lucra ( www.lucrasports.com ), the leading technology provider of gamification services, announces a new partnership with the largest operator of entertainment centers in the world, Dave & Buster’s, to provide customers with a fully immersive experience at venues nationwide.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240429412806/en/

The new strategic partnership integrates Lucra’s proprietary gamification software into the Dave & Buster’s app, allowing loyalty members to digitally compete with each other, earn rewards, and unlock exclusive perks while competing with friends at Dave & Buster’s – bringing together the sports arena and the arcade for an unparalleled, gamified experience.

“We’re thrilled to work with Lucra to bring this exciting new gaming platform to our customers,” said Simon Murray, SVP of Entertainment and Attractions at Dave and Buster’s. “This new partnership gives our loyalty members real-time, unrivaled gaming experiences, and reinforces our commitment to continuing to elevate our customer experience through innovative, cutting-edge technology.”

Lucra aims to disrupt traditional forms of competition, by providing a safe and trustworthy experience for people to challenge their friends, inside a platform or place they already know and love. Lucra’s approach will help to destigmatize cash-based competition by evolving it into a fun, friendly, and social experience.

After running a successful direct-to-consumer company for several years (growing it to 150K+ customers, 1M+ real-money contests, and $20M+ of handle), Lucra realized there was a bigger opportunity if it embedded its gamification tech directly into existing communities & established platforms.

Lucra offers two products that can be natively integrated into third-party platforms in as fast as two weeks. Handling 90% of the implementation work and 100% of the risk management, Lucra allows brands (big and small) to add gamification in 1/10th the time for 1/10th the cost.

Partners are able to customize the user interface to their choosing, allowing Lucra to power the game within the game from behind the scenes.

Lucra’s value prop to Partners is that we help:

(1) Attract: drive traffic to your platform or place
(2) Engage: keep customers longer inside your ecosystem
(3) Monetize: unlock revenue streams and offer rewards

We do so all while providing the rich analytics and insights from our performance dashboard, so Partners can better understand their customers, their preferences, and their spending habits.

Lucra is backed by some of the best sports and institutional investors (76 Capital, Raptor Group, Visible Ventures, AMBSE Ventures), and well-respected team owners and athletes (Marc Lasry, Dennis Wong, John Isner, Zach/Julie Ertz, Emmanuel Sanders, Khris Middleton, and more) and advised by the ex-WNBA commissioner (Donna Orender); Major League Pickleball Founder (Steve Kuhn); Stanford GSB Professor (Jonathan Levav); and Hollywood legend & The Last Dance Executive Producer (Mike Tollin).

For more information or to get in contact with the team, visit lucrasports.com

About Lucra
Lucra is the leading technology provider of gamification services. Their B2B technology facilitates cash, e-commerce, or cashless contests on partner platforms. Lucra's white-label Software Development Kit (SDK) provides partners with a comprehensive, turnkey solution to embed gamification technology directly into their platforms. This innovation offers features previously unavailable to enterprise Partners, including real-money, peer-to-peer contests within their platforms. For more information, visit lucrasports.com.

About Dave and Buster's
Founded in 1982 and headquartered in Coppell, Texas, Dave & Buster's Entertainment, Inc., is the owner and operator of 223 venues in North America that offer premier entertainment and dining experiences to guests through two distinct brands: Dave & Buster’s and Main Event. The Company has 164 Dave & Buster’s branded stores in 42 states, Puerto Rico, and Canada and offers guests the opportunity to "Eat Drink Play and Watch," all in one location. Each store offers a full menu of entrées and appetizers, a complete selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and an extensive assortment of entertainment attractions centered around playing games and watching live sports and other televised events. The Company also operates 59 Main Event branded stores in 20 states across the country, and offers state-of-the-art bowling, laser tag, hundreds of arcade games and virtual reality, making it the perfect place for families to connect and make memories. For more information about each brand, visit daveandbusters.com and mainevent.com.

(Graphic: Business Wire)

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — The European Union on Tuesday reprimanded Kosovo over the unilateral closure of six branches of a Serbia-licensed bank, saying the move would negatively impact the life of the ethnic Serb minority living in northern Kosovo and damage Kosovo-Serbia normalization talks.

On Monday, Kosovo police closed the branches of the Postal Saving Bank in line with the decision to ban the use of the Serbian dinar currency in the country. They also confiscated 1.6 million euros ($1.74 million) and some 75 million dinars ($700,000), which the judiciary will later decide what to do with.

Starting on Feb. 1, the government required areas dominated by the ethnic Serb minority in Kosovo to adopt the euro currency, which is used in the rest of the country, and abolished the use of the Serbian dinar.

Pristina postponed the move for about three months, following pressure from the EU and the United States, concerned that the decision would negatively impact the ethnic Serb minority in northern Kosovo.

An EU statement from Brussels, which was emailed to The Associated Press, considered the move as “escalatory … against the spirit of normalization,” adding that such “uncoordinated actions" by Kosovo put chances of reconciliation “at risk.”

The State Department also was “disappointed” with Kosovo’s lack of coordination with international partners for the move, fearing it would escalate tensions.

“The United States reiterates its clear concerns about the implementation of the amended Central Bank of Kosovo regulation that restricts the import and use of the Serbian dinar in Kosovo,” said a statement.

The British embassy in Pristina also warned that the move would “risk escalating tensions and making a long-term solution to the currency issue in Kosovo more difficult.”

Kosovar Finance Minister Hekuran Murati said everything was done in accordance with the law.

“There is justified suspicion that such activity was conducted without the proper financial license, something which is illegal and should suffer legal consequences,” said Murati at a news conference.

Murati said Pristina has offered alternatives but they were not accepted by Belgrade “because they have had other intentions, not aiming at helping citizens' life.”

Brussels and Washington are pressing both countries to implement agreements that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti reached in February and March last year.

The EU-facilitated normalization talks have failed to make progress, especially following a shootout last September between masked Serb gunmen and Kosovo police that left four people dead and ratcheted up tensions.

Most of Kosovo uses the euro, even though the country isn’t part of the EU. Parts of Kosovo’s north, populated mostly by ethnic Serbs, continue to use the dinar. Many Serbs there rely on the government of Serbia for financial support, often delivered in dinars in cash.

“In the continued absence of sustainable alternatives, this will have negative effects on the daily lives and living conditions of Kosovo Serbs and other communities eligible for financial transfers from Serbia,” the EU statement said.

Serbia's and Kosovo's chances of joining the EU one day are jeopardized by their refusal to compromise, according to the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.

The EU again urged Kosovo and Serbia to return to the negotiating table.

Serbian forces fought a 1998-99 war with ethnic Albanian separatists in what was then the province of Kosovo. About 13,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, died until a 78-day NATO bombing campaign pushed Serbian forces away. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, which Belgrade doesn’t recognize.

FILE - A man withdraws Serbian Dinars from a bank cash machine in northern Serb-dominated part of ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, on Jan. 31, 2024. The European Union on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, reprimanded Kosovo over the unilateral closure of six branches of a Serbia-licensed bank, saying the move would negatively impact the life of the ethnic Serb minority living in northern Kosovo and damage Kosovo-Serbia normalization talks. (AP Photo/Bojan Slavkovic)