Last week was a big week in the online gambling community. The biggest news – at least in the Western world – was that in the United States, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act passed the House Financial Services Committee, clearing the way for a full House vote.
There was another big piece of news in online gambling, though. PartyGaming and bwin accounced that they would merge. Since they are publicly traded companies, the merger has to be approved by shareholders, but if it goes through, that will make the resulting company the largest in the online gambling industry.
PartyGaming is an online casino and poker room based in the UK and bwin is an online bookmaker based in Austria. If the two merge, as has been in the works for approximately 6 months, they would offer virtually every imaginable type of game or activity for online betting. They would also have the largest revenue and most customers in the online gambling industry.
Many in the industry believe that more mergers are likely to come soon. Many also believe that the timing of this announcement, coming on the heels of the House Financial Services Committee vote, is no coincidence.
PartyGaming used to be the largest online poker room in the industry, but with approximately 70% of their customers coming from the United States, the passage of UIGEA in 2006, which amounted to a de facto ban on online gambling, they dropped to fourth-largest. One of the rules in the new American online gambling legislation is that online casinos who have violated existing U.S. laws will not be able to obtain licenses to operate in the States. For that reason, PartyGaming and other casinos need to continue to be careful when it comes to American customers, at least until the legislation is passed into law.
Tags: Barney Frank, bwin, bwin PartyGaming merger, gambling legislation, Internet Gambling Regulation Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act, Online Casino, online gambling, online poker, PartyGaming, UIGEA, Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act
December 23rd, 2010 at 10:04 am
[...] speculated and even officially planned for some time, but PartyGaming and bwin today officially announced their merger. PartyGaming Plc, based in Gibraltar, and bwin Interactive Entertainment AG, based in Austria, have [...]