As we reported late last week, the poker world was shocked Friday morning when 888 Holdings and bwin.party agreed to a $1.4 billion deal that would have 888 acquire its fellow online gambling firm. The surprise wasn’t because bwin.party was sold – that has been a possibility for years – but rather that 888 was the winning bidder. bwin.party had recently confirmed that it had a preliminary offer from GVC Holdings and financial partner Amaya Gaming valued at about $30 to $40 million more and all signs indicated the agreement would be inked. 888, though, made a last-ditch effort to win bwin.party and it did, even though its offer was for less money.
So yay, it’s all settled then. Not so fast. According to several reports out of the UK, GVC Holdings may make one more go of it. This time, though, it would be without Amaya Gaming. Reportedly, aspect of the GVC/Amaya deal that bwin.party didn’t like was that it was assumed that the acquirers were going to break up the company. Amaya, which bought PokerStars and Full Tilt last year, would take the partypoker brand, while GVC, owner of Sportingbet, would grab bwin.party’s sports betting and casino gaming business.
Amaya taking over partypoker, in particular, may have been a real sticking point, as Amaya owning PokerStars, Full Tilt, and party – which, along with PokerStars’ country-specific sites, occupy six of the top ten spots in PokerScout’s cash game traffic rankings – would not have gone over well with both industry competitors and customers.
The UK’s Telegraph, though, writes, “GVC continues to examine its options, however, and it is understood that one avenue under consideration is gate-crashing the 888 deal by making a higher offer for Bwin without the support of Amaya. A solo bid by GVC would remove some of the perceived risk that dogged its joint approach.”
GVC would likely need to find another partner, though, as it can’t afford to buy bwin.party on its own, especially since it might have to blow 888’s offer out of the water. “We’re reviewing our options and we’re not ruling anything out,” a GVC spokesman told the Telegraph.
888 also touted several “synergies” that it believes makes it a better partner for bwin.party than would GVC and Amaya. 888 and bwin.party already have offices near each other, licenses in the same countries, and 888 is already a strong player in the different games bwin.party offers; it would have no reason to split off poker, casino gaming, or sports betting to some other company.
It will certainly be interesting if GVC can come back with a sweeter deal. It is starting to look like GVC is that eBay bidder who has already hit its maximum bid, but just does not want to lose, so it says, “Well, just a few more bucks isn’t a big deal.” Sooner later, it (or 888, depending on what happens) needs to decide when enough is enough and move on.
