Bwin and PartyGaming deny merger talks

This is despite a merger making commercial sense; the value of a Party-Bwin partnership would be around us$ 3.2 billion as both are currently values at us$ 1.6 billion. The merger would provide Party Gaming with the sports betting and expertise it hoped to gain when it acquired Gamebookers for us$ 121.6 million back in 2006.

Although Party Gaming has said it is looking for a major sports betting platform so that it can provide a strong product suite in the verticals of poker, casino and sports betting. A source told the Sunday Times that “everyone in the industry is talking to everybody else”. This echoes Bwin co-chief executive, Norbert Teufelberger and 888 boss Gigi Levy’s comments on rumours of a Bwin-888 tie up three weeks ago.

James Hollins at brokerage Daniel Stewart said a Bwin-PartyGaming merger would be “exceptionally strategically compelling”, Party would benefit on the sports side of its product offer and Bwin gaining from Party’s in-house casino capabilities.

Hollins continued, “The combined groups' poker operations would drive clear scale economies and liquidity [Bwin and PartyGaming have the fourth and fifth largest poker networks globally] to compete squarely against the US-facing giants of PokerStars and Full Tilt.”