Amaya Joins the Chase to Purchase bwin.party

The competition between leading companies to buy bwin.party continues but in more serious tone as Amaya teamed up with GVC Holdings to create a combined bid for purchase of the bwin.party.

Amaya, a company that owns and operates PokerStars and FullTilt, has decided to team up with GVC Holdings in an attempt to stand up to the 888 Holdings, a group that confirmed its interest in bwin on Monday. 888 Holdings have announced on Monday that 59% of shareholders in the company will support the potential purchase of bwin.

The company stated that there was a significant industrial logic in combination of 888 and bwin, claiming that both ventures would certainly benefit from the acquisition. However, the deal has become more complicated as Amaya, global gaming leader in the online gambling industry, expressed an interest in bwin .

Apparently Amaya is interested in bwin’s poker platform while GVC would operate bwin's casino sportsbook and bingo operations. However, according to the reports, Amaya is also interested in bwin sports betting business and would probably buy sportsbook from GVC after a two-year period.

According to Forbes, bwin has big sports betting business and online gambling companies looking to start or expand such business see bwin as a great opportunity.

Amaya is currently negotiating with GVC to create a combined bid in an attempt to discourage the rival bidder, 888 Holdings. Under the plans of two companies, the purchase of the bwin would be paid from Amaya’s cash and GVC shares. They are prepared to bid €1.5 billion in order to push the deal through.

At the moment, Amaya is the biggest publicly listed online gambling company and its brand PokerStars is the largest poker site in the world. 888 Holdings also has significant casino, poker and bingo operations and its market value stands at $947m; for the comparison, Amaya’s market value is around $3.6 billion.

PokerStars is currently trying to complete a license acquisition process to operate in New Jersey and purchasing bwin would be an amazing opportunity for them to dominate the New Jersey’s gambling market, where bwin.party already has a presence. However, if 888 Holdings manages to purchase the company, they could become serious competitors to PokerStars in NJ.

Even though some analysts believe that 888 Holdings would benefit more from acquisition of bwin, Amaya certainly stands to gain a lot as well, especially when it comes to New Jersey gambling market and spreading their wings in the States.

GVC Holdings has teamed up with Amaya because the deal would provide necessary cash that GVC needs to beat the rival 888 Holdings.

Bwin.party put itself on sale last year after their business has seen years of revenue decline. However, the plans are still not set in stone and it is possible for the sale not to go through at all.