On Monday we saw the official announcement of the deal between bwin.party LTD and Amaya Gaming INC. that will see the latter take control of the OnGame Poker Network. The deal was first rumored to be in the works few weeks ago, after a deal between bwin.party and Shuffle Master fell-through earlier this year, and during that time-span the final purchase price fluctuated between $6 million and $26 million, with the official price being somewhere between $19.3 million and $32.2 million depending on future payments.

According to a press release the additional payments will take place over a five-year period and “The exact amount of the contingent consideration will depend upon the extent of the regulation based upon the number of states that regulate and the total population covered.”

Amaya, a Canadian gaming company, will likely use OnGame’s software to form partnerships in the US as individual states move towards online gaming legalization, as well as to offer the client in already regulated markets around the globe. In the press release David Baazov, Chief Executive Officer of Amaya Gaming, stated:

“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.”

The press release lists the benefits to Amaya Gaming as:

* Positions Amaya to participate in the US market should the government decide to regulate online poker

* Complements and strengthens Amaya’s B2B interactive product portfolio

* Provides Amaya with the ability to deliver complementary and value added services to its existing and new licensees

* Offers potential for cost savings through synergies

Bwin.party is planning a relaunch of their Party Poker gaming platform, with a huge upgrade expected in the coming months; Jim Ryan and Norbert Teufelberger, the Co-CEOs of bwin.party, said of the deal:

“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.”

As part of the deal, bwin poker players will be migrated to the Party Poker platform by the end of the year (the duplicate online poker products made OnGame expendable after Party Gaming and bwin merged last year), this time frame is also when the deal with Amaya Gaming is expected to be completed as it needs to meet with approval from regulators and other conditions must be met.

Tags: 6 Million, Acquisition, Amaya, bwin, Canadian Gaming, Chief Executive Officer, Deployment, Gaming Company, Gaming Inc, Gaming Platforms, Interactive Product, Lice, New Partners, Number Of States, Ongame, Online Poker, Poker Network, Press Release, Product Portfolio, Shuffle Master, Time Span, Total Population, Value Added Services

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012 at 8:20 am and is filed under Poker Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.