Overshadowed by online poker legislation passing a House Financial Services Committee vote yesterday was the news of a mega-merger in online gaming: Party Gaming and bWin –OnGame– announced they will be joining forces, forming the largest online gaming business in the world.

Party Poker is the best known arm of Party Gaming’s operation, and while bWin is known for its sport-book operation the site also controls the very popular OnGame Poker Network –a collection of smaller poker rooms that combine their player bases.

For online poker players, the merger will create an online poker site that rivals Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars without accepting US players! If and when online poker is legalized in the United States the Party Poker/OnGame Poker Network would clearly trump the current top dogs. And with yesterday’s amendment to HR 2267; disallowing any online poker sites from receiving a US license if they have violated US law –namely the UIGEA—Stars and Full Tilt will have to go to their Plan B’s in order to become licensed in the US.

Party Poker is the 3rd ranked online poker room in terms of traffic, while the OnGame Poker Network comes in at #5. Both sites are estimated to be worth right around £1 billion each.

So don’t be suprised if Party Poker increase there deposit bonus to become on of the best poker bonuses available online after the merger.

Tags: bwin, Party Gaming and Bwin, Party Poker, Party Poker and Bwin Merger

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 11:15 am and is filed under Poker 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.