PartyGaming Acquires Cashcade

In an attempt to dominate all areas of the online gaming industry, PartyGaming has bought Bingo owner Cashcade for £71.9 million with an additional amount to be paid, up to £24 million, depending on revenue targets being met.
PartyGaming’s long term objective is to lead the market in the four main gaming areas of online poker, casino, sports and bingo, and PartyGaming chief executive Jim Ryan said they are pleased to be acquiring the UK’s leading bingo site.
For the past two years, Cashcade had been for sale and there is speculation that Partygaming has paid over the market price for the company. 888 had expressed an interest in the company earlier in the year but were not prepared to meet the asking price. The chief executive of 888, Gigi Levy, said at the time: “We had bank financing for the acquisition, we just didn’t want to pay the price they were asking for. 888 is interested in Cashcade but there are other companies that are more interested in it and are willing to pay more for it.”
Jim Ryan of PartyGaming said he believed it was a good deal and would enable his company to exert competitve pressure on their rivals. He said: “Cashcade provides us with an excellent platform to build a meaningful share of the $1.5 billion global online bingo market. Our M&A objective is to acquire companies that can put us into a top three position in each of our four product verticals and deliver substantial revenue and cost synergies. Our longer-term strategic objective is to become the market-leader in online poker, casino, sports and bingo.”
There is expected to now be more movement in merging activity in the bingo marketplace as many rivals were believed to be holding off in anticipation of Partygaming’s valuation of the company thus giving them a sense of the wider value of the bingo market.