Let’s give this another try. Just over three months since bwin.party’s deal to sell its Ongame Network fell through, it is back on the horse and inking another agreement. On Monday, the online gaming giant announced that it is selling Ongame to Amaya Gaming Group Inc for up to €25 million ($32.2 million).
According to a statement on bwin.party’s website, the initial sale is for €15 million ($19.3 million), payable in cash when the deal closes in the fourth quarter of 2012. Amaya could fork over up to €10 million ($12.9 million) more if online poker becomes explicitly legal in the United States within five years. The exact amount of that follow-up payment will depend on how many states actually opt-in to any legislation and how many U.S. residents that includes.
Amaya is an electronic gaming provider that offers a full suite of casino games such as slots, blackjack, and roulette. Up to this point, it has had no online poker product.
Jim Ryan and Norbert Teufelberger, the Co-CEOs of bwin.party expressed their satisfaction with the deal in a press release, saying:
“The sale of Ongame conforms to our strategy, especially as we move closer to launching our single, proprietary technology platform in the next few months. We believe Ongame will fit well into Amaya Gaming and has an excellent future ahead.”
Similarly, Amaya CEO David Baazov commented:
“The acquisition of Ongame bolsters Amaya Gaming’s product portfolio, transforming Amaya into a leading provider of gaming platforms. Amaya looks forward to unleashing Ongame’s technology to its full potential through the leveraging of our many B2B relationships and delivering new partners and players to the network. The Ongame platform is scalable, proven and secure and is well suited for quick deployment in new regulated markets. We’re excited about the wide range of opportunities this acquisition makes possible for us as we execute on our vision.”
bwin purchased the Ongame Network in 2005, online poker’s golden age, for a whopping £474 million (approximately $765 million). When bwin merged with Party Gaming in March 2011 to create bwin.party, the Ongame Network was deemed a “surplus asset” and was “no longer needed.”
A bwin spokesperson said shortly before the merger, “Ongame may be repackaged, offered to a potential buyer. Partnerships are also thinkable, where they would take an interest. But no deadlines for this have been decided.”
The company looked for a buyer for almost a year when it finally seemed to have found a match in brick-and-mortar casino equipment supplier Shuffle Master. That deal was to be for £13 million ($20 million), but Shuffle Master backed out of the agreement in June of this year.
On the change of heart, Shuffle Master CEO Gavin Isaacs said, “It has become evident to us that Ongame’s operations post-acquisition will not achieve the near-term results we initially expected and will require a larger ongoing investment than anticipated.”
When the deal fell apart, investment bank Daniel Stewart and Company still believed Ongame would be a good acquisition target, noting, “…Although we view the asset as non-core (legacy) in our view the poker asset should remain an attractive purchase for an operator looking to expand into online poker, more specifically US land based operators with an eye to moving online.”