Online casino operators in merger news

On this first day of 2016 perhaps it’s time to have a look at the latest online casino news and how it is likely to affect our online casino experience going into the new year. Regular visitors to onlinecasino.ie will know that we have been discussing the potential mergers and takeovers within the online casino sector for some time and the last few months of 2015 have seen many of our best known online casino operators involved in merger talks as part of the inevitable consolidation efforts resulting from the new tax regimes. By far the biggest and most popular of these mergers is the tie up between Betfair and Ireland’s biggest online casino operator Paddy Power. The shareholders in both of these companies have now given a resounding thumbs up to the merger, and their share prices have both leapt since the merger was announced in August. That announcement came as something of a surprise for many analysts, but at a time when the Ladbrokes Coral merger was in the news and William Hill were among the suitors for 888 Holdings perhaps we should have seen it coming. The catalyst was undoubtedly Breon Corcoran, current chief executive at Betfair and almost certain to head up the new company, already christened Betty Power by the media. Having left Paddy Power to take over the running of Betfair he has overseen a staggering improvement in their fortunes and a share price which has surged by 144% in one year. He also knows Paddy Power inside out and the people in it. Valued at around £5.7 bn the new company will have an 18% market share taking it ahead of William Hill at 15%, and propelling it into the FTSE 100. Meanwhile Teddy Sagi, founder of the dominant online casino software company Playtech is apparently in talks with Sportech with a view to buying their football pools business. Playtech provides many of the casino games for our major online casinos and also developed systems for the fixed odds betting terminals now common in our betting shops.