Bwin and PartyGaming Merger?

[BeckyCA]

What is your opinion on this merger? Our source is a good one...!

Bwin and PartyGaming in mutual destruction dance!

[TheGooner]

Calvin Ayre has made a lot of money by being in the right place in the US market and operation outside the legal margins - but his views on private/public ownership are inaccurate - and he obviously has no-one on his sycophantic crew to stand up and tell him so.


Private companies (with shadowy ownership) have worked well in the US market - due to the legislative aggression of the US government which made them the ONLY game in town. That's all. Not because they were smaller, more tightly focused or any such blow-hard hype.

If that US legal attitude changes and gambling is legalised then the huge public brands, with bricks and mortar establishments and real front people will come in and totally swamp the shadowy private companies.

For all the online hype - BODOG as a brand will struggle to hold it's weight and it's share against the major real world gambling brands.

For an example of the potential future of Bodog in North America - just take a look at privately operated Bodog Europe's performance so far.

Bodog Europe is such a weak brand with almost zero penetration and an abysmal converter in European markets - that the operation must be on financial life-support and funded by other ventures and deep pockets of owners.

If there was one message that you could take back to Calvin it would be to not live on past successes and to actually get Bodog upping it's game to compete with the best of breed establishments ...

At present Bodog is a "B" grade establishment - it's good and solid but not market leading ...
.. and Bodog Europe would be lucky to reach "C-".

[BeckyCA]

I always welcome all opinions and feedback, especially when it comes to anything BodogBrand related, but I am also curious to hear what people think about the Bwin and PartyGaming merger specifically?

Becky

[TheGooner]

Bwin and PartyGaming are two mid-tier programs that have seperate specialist area with Bwin best known for sports and PartyGaming's Poker offering.

The cross-selling between sports betting and poker is a well known synergy, with both games having a large skill based component, and many players beleiving in their ability to do well in both.

IF (and it is a big if) they can successfully bring the best of both platforms across into a single combined offering that shares account access - then both brands could potentially gain a boost from access to each others customers.

From a purely player point of view I can't see a downside - It could lead to a major online competitor with cross channel offerings.

[gamblingbutler]

@TheGonner

Sounds pretty convincing.

My thoughts on the merger: I just hope existing referred players at both brands don't get "lost in transition" ...