Bwin.Party Eyes Return To US Poker Market
October 19, 2011 11:30 amBwin.Party is the largest publicly-traded online gambling company in the world with a market value of around $2.1 billion.
Online poker also forms a significant part of the company’s gambling offerings with the domain partypoker.com once the supreme online poker giant with a 41% of the worldwide online poker revenue in 2005.
However, that all changed in 2006, with the introduction of the UIGEA and the company’s subsequent withdrawal from the domestic US market, which is worth around $16 billion annually.
However, the amicable agreement struck between the DoJ and PartyPoker including a $105 million fine meant the company could one day hope of returning to the US market. That may now be a step closer after Bwin.Party´s Co-CEO Jim Ryan announced he was currently negotiating with two American companies in order to create a portal enabling Bwin.Party to return to the US online poker market.
Explaining his rationale in seeking partners in the States, Jim Ryan explained:
“We had to be realistic about where we sat in the food chain. We figured if the U.S. regulated it would be unlikely that we would secure a license directly, that the laws of the land would be written to allow existing land operators and equipment manufacturers in the U.S. to secure the licenses.”
Jim Ryan also emphasised that a mutually beneficial deal would help establish a network which exploited their Party Poker and World Poker Tour (WPT) brands, while also those of their potential partners.
Nevertheless, Ryan also pointed out that despite their being no guarantee online poker would ever be regulated in the U.S., it was still important to make preparatory moves in order to take advantage of any possible future opportunities. As Ryan commented:
“We have to be ready for both federal or state. It feels good to have American taxpaying companies finally driving this.”