Online Gambling firm 888 Holdings is making a run at buying Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment, the Gibraltar-based online gambling company. There are reports that Amaya, the world’s biggest publicly-traded online gambling company, is joining tiny GVC Holdings to try to buy and carve up Bwin.Party. Playtech, the gambling software developer, has not emerged as a potential bidder, but has shown interest in Bwin.Party in the past.
The sale of Bwin.Party may still not happen, but negotiations for the company have reached their most serious stage since activist hedge fund manager Jason Ader’s SpringOwl Asset Management struck a deal with Bwin.Party last year that seemed to put the company in play. The details of the bids have not been disclosed and remain murky.
A deal for Bwin.Party would be a big moment in the online gambling industry. Bwin.Party was formed in 2011, combining Bwin’s sports betting business and PartyGaming’s online casino and online poker offerings. Before it chose to leave the U.S. market in 2006, PartyGaming was the most valuable online gambling company in the world.
What makes Bwin.Party valuable to other online gambling companies today, however, is its big sports betting business. Billionaire Denise Coates’ Bet365 is the world’s biggest online sports betting company, but Bwin’s sports betting business is one of the next largest. Bwin’s sport betting business in Europe might be bigger than Bet365.
Amaya, 888 and Playtech have been working on becoming big online sports betting players. For any online gambling company looking for a sports betting business, buying Bwin would be the quickest way to do it.
Amaya reportedly is bidding with GVC by creating a special purpose vehicle controlled by GVC that would hold the bulk of Bwin.Party’s assets. There is precedent for such a partnership. GVC, which focuses on so-called gray markets, teamed up with British bookmaker William Hill in 2013 to buy Sportingbet for $850 million. William Hill took Sportingbet’s online gambling operations in Australia and Spain; GVC took Sportingbet’s business in unregulated markets.
Bwin.Party is scheduled to host its annual shareholders meeting in Gibraltar on Thursday.
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