The latest online casino news features William Hill

One of our duties her at onlinecasino.ie is to keep our readers up to date with the latest online casino news, but there are many occasions when very little appears to be happening in the online casino sector which could affect our readers. This month however the much heralded consolidation within the online gambling sector appears to be gathering pace. The driving force behind the need for consolidation is of course the increasing regulation and taxation coming from governments around the world which inevitably means that the online casino operator are seeking to reduce costs to maintain their profitability. In November last year Bwin party confirmed they had received several approaches from unnamed interested parties, and they then appointed Deutsche Bank to handle a potential sale or even a break-up of the company. Not much has happened since on that front but we now know that 888 Holdings have been in talks with William Hill over a possible £750 million take-over. William Hill is Britain’s biggest bookmaker and a popular online casino operator among casino games players in Ireland. They were also thought to be in the frame as one of the potential buyers of Bwin party so they are clearly eager for a deal. There are many industry observers who think that the acquisition of 888 Holdings by William Hill would not only generate the cost savings required, but would also enable William Hill to eventually relax its ties with Playtech because 888 Holdings has its own online casino software. There does not appear to be much doubt that a deal such as this would set off a chain of similar acquisitions within the online casino gambling sector, with Bwin party still a prime target. The big loser could well be Ladbrokes, who themselves have twice failed in their attempts to buy 888 Holdings over recent years. We will all have to wait and see how this piece of casino news develops over the next few weeks.