Shares in Austrian provider of online gaming entertainment bwin Interactive Entertainment soared in early trading this morning after the company confirmed that it was in the final stages of acquiring Gioco Digitale, one of Italy’s oldest online gaming sites.
According to the announcement, the boards of both companies and its shareholders have agreed on principle terms for the acquisition of 100% of Gioco Digitale, but did state that although the acquisition was progressing, there could be no certainty that a final binding agreement on the transaction will be reached.
Details on deal size have not been disclosed yet at this point. Daniel Stewart & Company analyst James Hollins told Reuters that he estimated the purchase price to be around 100 million euros ($143 million), and expected the deal to boost bwin’s earnings. Italian media estimate Gioco Digitale to be purchased for in between 90 and 95 million Euros.
Bwin Interactive Entertainment provides sports betting, poker, casino games, soft and skill games, as well as audio and video streams of top sporting events in more than 25 markets under international and regional licenses. The company’s services are provided via the Internet and other digital distribution channels, such as mobile phones. It derives its revenues primarily from sports betting and poker on its primary websites bwin.com and pokerroom.com.
The company in its last quarterly report had already made it clear it was planning on expanding into the Italian online gambling market, which it expects to be deregulated in the near future.
The deal is valued between €90 and €95 millions.
Thanks Stefano, added a link to Affaritaliani.it which estimates the deal value to be in between those numbers indeed.
Interesting news. It is good to see that Bwin is trying to improve their status in other European countries.
Quite interesting news for game lovers! They say their next plan is to expand into the Italian online gambling market. Lets see how that takes off in the near future!
It seems a little overvalued at 95mill euros. If last week 10% of the company was valued 2 millions, as written on the Reuters news
i work close to Paolo Ainio shareholder of gioco digitale … good deal !!!
Next day Bwin shares dropped 9.5 percent after a European Union court allowed gambling restrictions such bet websites. The 2.5 billion euro ($3.6 billion) online betting industry suffered a setback as the European Union said that a member states could be allowed to ban gambling websites if its intention was to stop crime.
BWIN was already in the Italian gambling market with http://www.bwin.it. So they already had a break into the market a while ago – this deal will “just” expand it. I am interested to hear how will BWIN make the best of the French eGaming market liberalization!
yes they are on IT market already
$$$ hey