Home / Poker News September 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – Ongame Network Finally Sold
The Poker Grapevine – Ongame Network Finally Sold
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2012-09-30 08:05
Bwin.Party have had the Ongame network on the market for almost a year now, but as overall online poker traffic numbers kept plummeting through the year, it proved almost an impossible task to unload the online poker asset. Several times, potential buyers surfaced, but eventually nothing came to fruition deal-wise in any of the cases. We are now relieved to report though that the Ongame network has finally found a buyer in Amaya Gaming Group Inc. of Toronto, Canada. The money that the Amaya Group will reportedly pay for Ongame is rather disappointing in light of the other – previously floated – numbers. It is rumored that the going price of the operation will be between $6.5 and $8 million and that an announcement regarding the transaction will be made soon.
The first rumors regarding the Ongame sale surfaced last February, When Shuffle Master showed definite interest in the asset. A definitive offer had indeed been signed for the now stellar-looking sum of €19.5 million, but Shuffle Master backed out of the deal citing an overall industry downtrend and generally worsening
online poker conditions.
Among those rumored to have developed an interest in the company since, was Zynga, but obviously, no deal has been reached in that case either.
The Ongame network is said to rank 5th in overall cash game traffic, well behind heavy-hitters PokerStars, iPoker,
PartyPoker and
888Poker.
In other news: the first ever stop of the LAPT in Panama kicked off on Thursday. 338 players bellied up to the tables, clearing the numbers-game for the organizers. The money bubble was set for 49th place, and the winner will take home a $171.9k prize.
On Day 1, the field managed to play down to the final 111. The player who clinched the chip lead for the day was John Hewitt, who built a stack of 155,400 chips. Hewitt is followed up-close by Martin Gabriel Diaz, who accumulated 155.2k chips. Alex Komaromi and PokerStars’ Leo Fernandez both survived.
