In the world of online betting and casino, companies merge all the time. Considering how competitive the market is and just how many companies have a hand in the iGaming pie, that’s not exactly surprising. Once companies start getting too many to sustain a viable market environment, some of them need to go, and buyouts are a way to do that in which everyone wins. Coral merged with Ladbrokes, Betfair merged with Paddy Power (most likely to create Betty Power, as Paddy Power’s Twitter quipped), and now Bwin (also spelled bwin), owners of FoxyBingo, PartyPoker and PartyCasino (among others), are on the fast track to merge with GVC (owners of big bookies and casino sites like SportingBet and Casino Club) after the latter made a £1.1 billion offer.
The betting war between 888 Holdings and GVC has been going on for quite a while now. As the Guardian reported, at one point 888 were even sure that they would win, but ultimately it wasn’t meant to be, with GVC increasing their offer to the aforementioned sum and offering substantial benefits. Not content with that turn of events, 888 continued to increase their offer, claiming that in the long run there would be more benefits, but Bwin just couldn’t afford to wait that long if they wanted to keep all of their staff employed (which, honestly, is quite understandable and commendable). At the end of the day, Bwin employs over 2,000 people on 3 continents, so letting even just 10% or 20% go would still mean hundreds of people left jobless, which wasn’t an ideal scenario for anybody.
Philip Yea, chairman of Bwin, shared his difficulty with choosing between the bidders, implying that it was really a question of potential long-term benefits from 888 and guaranteed short-term ones from GVC. “It really has been a question of balancing some very fine judgments at the margin”, he explained. It’s important to note that the modern version of Bwin was already created from a merger between the old version and Party Gaming, so the management staff have experience with this sort of thing and we should presume that they were fully aware of all the implications and complications picking GVC over 888 would have in the next 5 to 10 years.
According to many (experts and players alike), 888 is considered to be the best online casino, overshadowing even older giants such as William Hill and Ladbrokes. 888’s expansion was quick and violent, with the company climbing up to the top in only 18 years – significantly shorter than it took the over 80 year old William Hill. As such, it’s a rather safe bet that Bwin would’ve been in pretty good hands with them. But, as stated above, accepting 888’s (smaller) offer would’ve meant releasing a part of Bwin’s staff. So despite the fact that their future might be a little bit harder (though of course that’s not a given – GVC have also proven themselves to be quite reliable), Bwin really deserve a round of applause for placing their employees first and foremost.