Amaya Gaming, the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, has sold Amaya, Inc. (formerly and best known as Chartwell Technology, Inc.) and Cryptologic Limited to NYX Gaming Group Limited for CAD $150 million.
Both of Chartwell and Cryptologic are similar, as both deal in business-to-business (B2B) online casino game and platform development. They were originally purchased by Amaya Gaming in July 2011 and April 2012, respectively.
“We are very proud to have created substantial value in these businesses and to return that value to shareholders,” said Amaya Gaming Chairman and CEO David Baazov in a press release. “With our B2B businesses now divested, we can focus on our consumer online gaming operations and enhancing shareholder value through deleveraging.”
As Baazov said, Amaya has now rid itself of its B2B businesses and is now totally in the business-to-consumer (B2C) game. It appears that its goal now is to grow its online poker casino gaming empire and given that it owns the largest internet poker site in the world in PokerStars and one of the industry’s most recognized brand names (though not always for good reasons) in Full Tilt is a good start.
Amaya recently attempted to grab even more of the online poker market when it teamed up with GVC Holdings to make a 110p per share bid on rival bwin.party. It appeared that this bid would be the winner, but 888 Holdings came through with a similar – though less lucrative – offer that bwin.party accepted. GVC Holdings has since put forth a richer offer of 122.5p per share, but did so without Amaya Gaming’s assistance. Though nothing was officially announced by either GVC or Amaya, conventional wisdom is that if the duo did acquire bwin.party, they would have split up the company, Amaya taking partypoker and GVC taking the sports betting and casino games businesses. It is thought that bwin.party did not like this idea, which was one of the factors in both it accepting 888’s offer and GVC trying again sans Amaya.
“Old school” online poker players may recognize the name Cryptologic from the early days of internet poker through the poker boom. Cryptologic was once a major player in the industry and for a while looked like it could make a run at being the market leader. But then the UIGEA came along in late 2006 and, like many online poker networks, Cryptologic pulled out of the U.S. market and had to start rearranging the furniture. Known for solid software and soft competition, the Cryptologic Network was once home to well-known names such as Sun Poker (formerly Caribbean Sun Poker), Interpoker, William Hill, and Betsafe Poker. It also attracted two huge brands, Playboy and the World Poker Tour, both of which opened internet poker rooms on the network, getting people excited that things could really take off. The heights once dreamed of were never reached, though, and by the time it was acquired by Amaya in 2012, Cryptologic’s poker business was essentially dead. Amaya sold the B2C unit of Cryptologic in 2014.
