Bwin.party Looking for US Partners

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While presenting the results for the first half of the current year, CO-CEO of Bwin.party Jim Ryan revealed some of the strategic plan the online gambling group was looking at. Ryan expressed his opinion that online gambling would be regulated in the United States "in the near term". Many leading members of the industry have been as optimistic despite the lethargy in the legislation processes. They are also taking action to back their views.

Similarly, Ryan announced that Bwin.party is seeking to finalize agreements with strategic partners at the federal and the state levels in California and New Jersey. He said, "At federal level, we are finalizing agreements with a couple of parties positioned nicely to operate in that market. In California, we are well advanced with a particular party. The same in New Jersey, consistent with where we are at a federal level." Ryan did not name the potential American partners.

Ryan indicated that the Bwin.party poker brands, such as PartyPoker, WPT, Poker Room, and subscription brand Club WPT, would benefit the most from the American partnerships. This is because the four erstwhile leading poker brands would in all likelihood be excluded from the regulated American market following the Black Friday indictments. In fact, Ryan stated in response to a question from analyst Vaughan Lewis of JP Morgan that Bwin.party was not and will not look at acquiring the assets of Full Tilt Poker.

Bwin.party reported a fall in earnings of 21% as compared to the same period last year. The EBITDA fell from €104.1 million to €81.9 million. Higher marketing costs and taxes associated with launching in regulated markets were the reasons given. However, this performance was better than that expected by the market analysts. Bwin.party also reported a drop in revenues due to increased competition in poker, the closure of French online casino market and tough comparatives presented by last summer's football World Cup.

Bwin.party also gave an idea about the revenues for the different product verticals. Online casino was the only product vertical to demonstrate growth in the half year. The revenues were up 2%. Though the online sports betting revenue was down 2%, it was not a concern according to Ryan because the benchmark of 2010 was abnormally high. The revenues from online poker were down approximately 10%, the main loss being in the global dot com world. Bwin.party was doing well in the local poker markets in Italy and France where they had acquired market shares of 17% and 19%.

However, the future outlook is good. Ryan said that the Bwin PartyGaming merger was expected to realize higher than expected cost savings through synergies.

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