On Friday, July 17, it was announced that bwin.party Group had been sold to 888 Holdings. The deal, worth 1.4 billion U.S. Dollars, happened after weeks of negotiations in which 888 and GVC (backed by Amaya - the owner of Full Tilt and PokerStars) were fighting to buy the company.
Although GVC offered slightly more money for the take over, bwin.party decided to go for 888 because of, for example,[...] Read more » 888 Buys bwin.party For $1.4 Billion!
Joined: May '08
Location: Lithuania
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 10090
1.4 billion is quite a lot of paper. that eclipses even the amount amaya paid for pokerstars, which was a better long term buy imo. actually if amaya would won this deal they would be the total online gambling Mecca. now it's quite a head-scratch to see the long term for 888 holdings value they are talking about, maybe bwin is more or less a cash-cow, but party...? ah well, like i care
Joined: Mar '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 46 (F)
Posts: 2261
That sounds like too much money to me.Hopefully they will keep things the way they are and not change too much....to me they do feel like different sites. The choice for poker players is slowly being taken away and I hope that in 5 years there won't just be 2 big poker companies who only offer slots,turbo re-buys and spin and go type of games.
Joined: Aug '10
Location: Germany
Age: 53 (M)
Posts: 2219
I read about this big deal in another thread, but i´m not sure: is this a good or a bad news? They can´t beat Stars/FT and the online ans sports betting marked lost a big player in my opinion. But we can hope for nice promos at the first time...
Considering that Party has maybe 10000 players at any one time (I think the average is way less). Lets say for bwin and party combined there are 20000 players playing on average.
Lets say the investment needs to be earned back in 10 years, so $140 million profit is required each year.
That would mean one player needs to earn them $140.000.000 / 20.000, if they play 24/7 the whole year = $7.000 / player
An average player might play 2 hours/day, and would have to generate $7.000 / 12 = $583 per year.
Do we really pay $583 per year for the privilege of using their software to play online poker?
I think I do, but so many are just playing freerolls. Yet another example of how much we are overpaying for this software service...
Joined: May '08
Location: Germany
Age: 60 (M)
Posts: 6787
Bwin.party is not only a poker room. Bwin has a big sportsbook that operates all over Europe and is actually making a profit. Something a lot of cardrooms are struggeling to do. So the offer doesn't seem to be unreasonable.
Joined: Mar '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 7371
These are insane amounts of money being talked about and there must be a very healthy profit still to be made on these poker sites. I hope things do not change too much
Joined: Nov '14
Location: Macedonia, The former Yugoslav Republic of
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 1169
I have an idea, lets make people`s poker, and the profit from the ante it generates will finance the servers that run the software, and big cash out tournaments, and of course there's not gonna be company stocks so others can devalue the stock and buy it for penny`s on a dollar, we are not gonna play the stock market, coz we are not profit driven firm, why w8 for some1 else to set up everything and control where our money, coz it is our money anyways, should be spend and go, so how bout it, any takers???
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 45 (M)
Posts: 4829
The list of billion dollar companies is already big, although it's still hard for someone who lives in the world with hundreads making his life buying things of tens to understand. Is there a limit for fortune? No. Will those who already generated a fortune feel afortunate enough to stop investing and growing bigger? No. Now relating to the news' subject, we can ask what does 888 pretend with this investment? I guess it's obvious. If their first line competitors are joining themselves to conquer the market, they have to do the same to keep their position. Let's see if this bet is right!
Joined: Feb '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 60 (M)
Posts: 5713
Big companies is big business but also some element of security for us as consumers. Just think about all the small poker sites that have come and gone, mainly with our money and then consider the biggies are still here and still looking after our interests.
