Corporate takeovers continue to dominate Irish casino news

One of the most significant elements of most Irish online casino news, and indeed European casino news over the past few months has been the rash of corporate take overs and mergers within the online gaming industry. Many would argue that this started with the merger last year of Party Gaming and Bwin of Austria to form what we now know as Bwin Party. That merger was intended to position the new company to take advantage of the expected deregulation of the online poker market in America. Unfortunately most analysts now agree that the results have been disappointing in that regard, partly because of the extremely competitive nature of the online poker market, but also because of a number of regulatory issues which have arisen in their core European market, particularly Germany. It is generally believed that the management are addressing these problems and the company is expected to achieve its full year targets. In the meantime they have also recently announced an agreement with the social gaming group Zynga to help them offer poker gambling and other forms of online casino games to their customers. The biggest player in more recent online casino news has of course been William Hill, who it appears have not only decided to exercise their option to buy out their partner in William Hill Online, Playtech, but have also put in a joint bid for Sportingbet worth an estimated £530 million. If these deals go through it would propel William Hill to a position of global leader in the online gambling sector. One other piece of news not related to the online gambling sector is the agreed contribution to the horse racing industry in next year’s Levy scheme of £72.9 million from Gala Coral, Ladbrokes, William Hill and Betfair.