According to a report published this week by the Reuters news agency, which cited a report in the Financial Times as its source, PartyGaming, the parent company of popular online poker room Party Poker, may enter into a partnership with Cryptologic to “increase liquidity while reducing expenses substantially.” Poker News Daily has confirmed that talks may have taken place, although no company names were given by PartyGaming officials.
John Shepherd, the Director of Corporate Communications for PartyGaming, told Poker News Daily in an e-mail, “We are keeping our options open and that may include looking at whether there is any merit in combining our two businesses. We have no other comment to make.” Reuters added that Party Gaming and CryptoLogic have already “entered into a separate five-year licensing agreement,” meaning the two companies will work together in the future even if talks on a merger or other business relationship fail to materialize.
The Financial Times article expounded on the five year agreement reached to license casino games: “Jim Ryan, PartyGaming chief executive, said CryptoLogic content would enhance its market-leading position. Brian Hadfield, his counterpart at CryptoLogic, said PartyGaming was one of its biggest customer deals ‘and an endorsement of the branded games element of our new strategy.’”
CryptoLogic was founded in 1995 and launched InterCasino one year later. It signed William Hill (which recently left CryptoLogic for Playtech) in 1999 and began trading on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange in the United States in 2000. Its online poker arm debuted in 2002 and has since grown to include Sun Poker, Playboy Poker, Interpoker, Classic Poker, Holland Casino, the World Poker Tour’s gaming site, and Betsafe Poker. Its casino game offering includes Casinomeister, DrMBrace, King Kong, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and Shoot-O-Rama. CryptoLogic has developed well over 200 games in total.
PartyGaming is the parent company to wildly successful online poker room Party Poker. The site’s marquee tournament is the $215 buy-in $300,000 Guaranteed, which runs every Sunday at 12:45 ET. Satellites begin at $3 and single and multi-table tournaments are available. Last weekend’s winner of the $300,000 Guaranteed, Santa4e, took home $60,000. The tournament regularly sees an overlay, which means that the actual prize pool falls short of the guarantee. Prior to the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in the U.S., Party Poker was one of the largest online poker rooms in the country.
At 15:00 ET every Sunday, Party Poker hosts the $320 buy-in $50,000 Guarantee, which kicks off at the same time as the $530 buy-in $30,000 Guarantee. The online poker site is in the midst of promoting a $2 million tournament, which is slated to occur on Sunday, November 30th. Dubbed the “King of the Table,” that event has a buy-in of $640. For players who are unable to afford the price tag, a large satellite system is in place.
The five year agreement with PartyGaming was CryptoLogic’s eighth deal of the 2008 calendar year, according to the Financial Times. The industry has been hit with three recent online poker room closures: Duplicate Poker, Fleet Street Games, and Chan Poker. Fleet Street Games is scheduled to shut down at the end of October. Current customers may request cashouts by logging in through the company’s website.