Online Poker

PartyGaming, parent company of Party Poker, has acquired the World Poker Tour as part of a purchase of its parent company, World Poker Tour Enterprises.

This is somewhat surprising, as it seemed for a while that a deal with Gamynia, owner of such poker rooms as Titan Poker, would go through instead for $9 million and a percentage of future WPT and Professional Poker Tour revenues. Unfortunately for Gamynia, PartyGaming offered a more attractive $12.3 million with a 5% revenue share on monies made on the purchased assets.

It is still possible for this new deal from PartyGaming to get scuttled, as shareholders must first formally approve it, but it is likely to go through. At this stage, the deal could be closed as early as the end of the fourth quarter of 2009. This would see assets such as the television backlog of the WPT and the various WPT related brands transferred to PartyGaming in the very near future. The company will apparently keep the cash it still has, however, totaling at somewhere near $13.4 million, as well as keeping license revenues from current sponsorship deals for the latest season of the World Poker Tour.

The World Poker Tour is highly regarded for its attempts to bring poker further into the mainstream through televised professional tournaments. With upcoming events in Slovakia, Cyprus, Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and Connecticut, the WPT takes high level poker play all around the world. As one of the richest and most prestigious tournament circuits, the World Poker Tour brand should bring PartyGaming a lot of new players and cash. This relies on PartyGaming maintaining or improving on the high standards of the WPT, though, so we will have to wait and see if this turns out to be a good deal in the long run.