Home / Poker News June 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – Shuffle Master Backs Out of Ongame Deal
The Poker Grapevine – Shuffle Master Backs Out of Ongame Deal
Posted by: Jo Martin - Fri, 2012-06-29 15:21
This February, Shuffle Master announced that they were going to buy the OnGame Network from bwin.party for the sum of €19.5 million. A couple of days ago the company has announced that they were backing out of the deal, mainly for the reason that industry conditions in Europe have deteriorated significantly since last February. According to Shuffle Master CEO Gavin Isaacs, his company was still a firm believer in the growth opportunities offered by online gaming, but it also recognized that following its acquisition, the Ongame Network would find it quite impossible to live up to the short-term expectations the company has pinned on it in February. Also, kicking things into gear will certainly require a much bigger initial investment than anticipated.
One doesn’t have to be a specialist to see how conditions for smaller
online poker operations have indeed gone from bad to worse recently. Several EU countries have legalized online poker, locking most of the smaller industry members out. While the giants are still doing fine, the market has been fragmented for them too, and overall online poker traffic numbers have been in a nosedive lately as well.
The legal situation doesn’t appear any rosier in the US either, despite all the talk regarding legalization and regulation.
The interesting thing is that a couple of weeks ago, Shuffle Master and OnGame announced a partnership with Bally Technologies, the first Vegas-based company that received a Nevada online gaming license. Exactly what will become of the said partnership is not currently known.
In other news: Phil Ivey has shot to the top of the GPI leader board about a week ago and there he’s sat ever since. Ivey’s spectacular jump to the top was due to a phenomenal run he had put together at the 2012 WSOP: he made no fewer than 5 final tables in a mere 13-day period.
Justin Bonomo managed to break into the top 10 this week too.
