Does ownership of the online casinos affect the customer

From time to time we like to report on any Irish online casino news which our readers may find interesting, but in the absence of any casino news specifically associated with Paddy Power or the Irish casino operators, we thought we’d take a look at the latest developments in the long running saga involving William Hill and Sportingbet. William Hill are of course well known in Ireland and have many online casino and online betting customers in the country, and for some time now William Hill, in association with GVC Holdings have been attempting to agree a takeover of Sportingbet. With negotiations now reaching a conclusion which the board of Sportingbet are expected to recommend to their shareholders, the deal may finally be done. The primary target for William Hill is of course the lucrative Australian online casino and sports betting business, but It has to be said that many observers think that the current offer, which is considerably less than the initial bid following a disappointing trading update, may tempt other potential bidders to come in at the last minute. Some Sportingbet shareholders are even hoping that Paddy Power may come in with a higher offer now that the details have become clear. Time is running out of course, but as it stands the joint bid appears to be in the region of £486 million with William Hill paying £455 million for the Australian and Spanish operations and GVC Holdings assuming control of the British, Greek and Danish businesses, and resolving any regulatory issues from the Turkish online gambling operations. As we have said before in these pages, it is most unlikely that the ordinary online casino games players will be affected in any way by the eventual ownership of the online casino operations, at least in the immediate future, but further consolidation within the online gambling industry is inevitable.