Even though it was announced while ago that the merger between PartyGaming (their most famous brands include PartyPoker, Gamebookers, PartyCasino and also a recent acquisition Foxy Bingo) and Bwin (on top of the massive Bwin brand they also for an example own the Ongame poker network) is certainly not going to happen, it was suddenly today announced that they it is certainly one and is now just waiting for the blessing from majority of the share holders. Once the new company will comes alive it will be the biggest stock exchange listed online gambling and is expected to have market value of more than 2.5billion euros. Current bwin will be the majority holder in the new company and gets bit more than 51% of the shares.
The news about the merger came just a day after it was announced that the bill that suggests new licensing system for online gambling sites might be reality in less than a year. Both of these companies are expected to benefit tremendously of the new licensing system, as both of them stopped accepting players from the USA right after the UIGEA become reality. Even though even UIGEA didn’t criminalize playing online poker from the USA it is expected that the online poker rooms that still accept players from there (such as PokerStars and FullTiltPoker) will have much harder time at getting a license.
The PartyGaming share is up more than 20% today and Bwin close to 18%. The news about the merger and the possible new law in the USA boosted also other online gambling company shares today, 888 is currently up close to 9% and Sportingbet more than 10%. When on top of this Unibet finished the day with 6% gain it is easy to say that gambling company share holders have today lot to celebrate for.
