New weekly poll: Ongame sale - who is the most likely buyer?

Almost six months on from announcing its sale no official statement has been given by bwin.party as to whether any bidders have come in for the poker network. And with co-CEO Jim Ryan known to prefer a sale before the end of the year, there is only a matter of weeks left for this to happen.

The price for the network is estimated to be around €20 to €30m with around 170 well-paid staff based in Stockholm. It is not known in what form the company would be sold, if it is sold at all.

With bwin.party merging French operator Sajoo into its liquidity pool, the fifth largest poker site and second largest poker network according to data site Pokerscout, could see just its software sold to the highest bidder, the network disappear and licensees migrate to other platforms as a result. In France, for example, only Unibet, that until recently has shown no desire to switch on its local licence, would remain on the network, while in Italy with Gioco and Bwin both leaving, it would be left with a handful of minor local skins.

Its dot.com network would still boast Betfair, Betsson and PAF with the UK operator known to be biding its time before possibly either switching back to its own software or moving with the network depending on its new owner. It could still, however be sold as a network but with time running out a number of industry commentators have said this is increasingly unlikely.

So, who needs a clean poker platform? In recent weeks it has become increasingly evident that any number of US land-based casinos or large Native American tribes could be the most likely bidders. In the last few months Fertitta Interactive acquired poker platform Cyberarts, while IGT paid a handsome, and perhaps inflated, US$70m for Scandinavian Ongame rival Entraction with the latter recently banning players from grey markets including Canada, Israel, Norway, Russia and Turkey.

Another number of UK and European operators could also be interested in purchasing the network with a several sportsbooks known to be investigating the option, boosting their poker revenues but crucially equally making them less reliant on certain joint venture partners or third party suppliers.

The third option that remains to bwin.party is that if no bidder matches its expectations or that no formal bid comes in at all. Convincing shareholders of a listed US casino business that it should spend up to €30m on a poker network with several land-based businesses severely underperforming could be a hard sell, for example. This, unlike the deal, should not be written off.

Vote on the weekly eGR poll now and let us know your thoughts on the future of Ongame.