News

Monday, 09 August 2010 11:35

Internet gambling's on-off soap opera starring Bwin and PartyGaming finally drew to its long awaited climax when the two firms announced they are to merge.

The news came on 29th July as the two online gambling companies, who are among the largest and most respected in the world announced that they will finally become a single entity by the first quarter of 2011. This move will create the biggest single online gambling corporation in the world and represents a major power shift in the industry.

For poker players, this also means that PartyGaming's flagship online poker room, PartyPoker will reinforce its position as the world number three online poker room, helped in no small way by the major Ongame poker network position held by Bwin. It will also make it possible to mount a serious challenge to Full Tilt Poker's number two position in the online poker world.

Between them, the two separate companies earned almost $900 million in 2009, although their combined value on the public trading markets will be in the region of $4 billion. There is still one hurdle to pass, which is a successful vote by the shareholders of each company. Although with news that the share value of each company has escalated considerably since the proposed merger was announced, they are confident of approval by shareholders even though there has to be a 75 percent majority in favour of the move.

Before the announcement, both companies were already heavyweights in the industry, with each of them hosting a sizeable collection of online gambling services and offers including poker and web based casinos. They also ran two of the Internet's largest sports books as well as online bingo sites. It is predicted that online bingo will continue to grow as a gambling option online and this merger will see more growth in this sector of the market from the new super company.

Both companies can boast an extremely voluminous cash flow that has shrugged off the effects of the current economic downturn. They have both been long term players in the online gambling business since the late 1990s. This has produced a well seasoned and highly experienced team of company executives who have become very familiar with the many aspects of the market and are well aware of the benefits their merger will bring to both sides of the table.

This historic merger is likely to be the beginning of a trend that will affect an already diluted market that is ripe for more companies to join forces and reap the rewards in an industry that just keeps growing.