As part of its current strategy to divide and conquer the world of online poker, PartyGaming is quickly eliminating the competition by buying it out. Over a month after announcing that it was removing its multi-million player stronghold from the existing platform, leaving players on white label sites to fend for themselves with a severely depleted player base, PartyGaming has made acquisitive offers to at least three of its “skins."

After PartyGaming moved its online poker players to a new and improved platform, skins were left with a minute fraction of their previous player base. Players were left with two options: settle for a newly inferior online poker site, or find somewhere new to play. This “somewhere new" was often Party Poker, which has so far benefited from the move.

Party's white label partners, on the other hand, were essentially forced to take one of two routes: take the “if your can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach, or, alternatively, switch teams. Two of PartyGaming's skins, Multipoker and Intertops Poker, opted for the former approach, while a third, Coral Eurobet, opted for the latter.

Late last week, PartyGaming announced that, for $14.5 million, it had acquired “the business, assets, player database and intellectual property of Multipoker." Adding Multipoker to the PartyGaming empire translates into 255,000 additional players for the platform as a whole. Aside for Multipoker, PartyGaming also acquired Intertops Poker for a reported $4 million, but allowed it to continue earning commission through an affiliate arrangement, by which Intertops Poker would continue routing players to Party Poker.

For Coral Eurobet, Party Poker's second largest skin, the party is indeed over. Instead of bowing to PartyGaming, Coral Eurobet decided to join forces with emerging online poker powerhouse Ongame, the network that is home to PokerRoom.com.

As far as Empire Online is concerned, PartyGaming has reportedly made a buy-out offer to its biggest skin. Since the offer, however, Empire stock has dropped 20 percent, a factor that may lead PartyGaming to lower its bid price.

Source: Poker777 Staff

Sunday, 13 November 2005