Bwin.party sold!
The biggest news in August was the completion of the bwin.party (owners of partypoker) acquisition. We have previously written about the bidding war, in the end it was GVC Holdings who came in with the winning offer of £1,16 billion.
Photo: CalvinAyre
It all started back in March but by July only two serious offers remained on the table, that of GVC Holdings and 888 Holdings.
For a while it looked like 888 Holdings would win, bwin.party even accepted their offer, but GVC Holdings came in with a huge bid that 888 Holdings didn't want to compete with.
On September 3, 888 Holdings announced that since the bwin.party board of directors is more interested in working together with GVC Holdings, they are withdrawing their offer.
PaddyPower and Betfair merge
Betfair and PaddyPower, two of the biggest names in the online bookmaking market have recently announced a huge, £5 billion merger.
The merger has not been finalized yet, but if it goes through, PaddyPower shareholders will own 52% of the new company with Betfair shareholders owning the remaining 48%.
Photo: CalvinAyre
If the two companies merge, they would become the biggest sportsbook on the UK market, but the online poker section of both sites could also experience a big surge in traffic.
The two companies started discussing a merger after the news that Gala Coral and Ladbrokes joined forces to create a £2,3 billion company, but the sale of bwin.party to 888 Holdings/GVC could also be a factor.
PaddyPower was founded in 1988 in Ireland, nowadays it's one of the biggest sportsbooks of the UK with almost 600 betting shops.
Betfair was founded in 1999 and the company has plenty of licenses in addition to their UK license, for example in Malta, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Denmark and the United States.
Paypal now available at Caesars gambling sites
Paypal is one of the biggest e-wallet companies in the world and they have recently entered the regulated US online gambling market.
The first company they joined forces with is Caesars Interactive Entertainment, the payment processor is now available on the company's online gaming sites in Nevada and will soon be available in New Jersey aswell.
While this doesn't look like big news, the fact that most widely used e-wallet service in the US is now available for online gambling should have a good effect on the US legalization process and could bring new players to the WSOP Nevada and WSOP New Jersey sites.
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