US stance on online gambling fuelling a market for opportunists
A number of global businesses, including betting ‘great white’ Ladbrokes International Ltd, are circling troubled online gaming companies and we will no doubt see them move to take advantage of companies’ low valuations.
The feeding frenzy is taking the form of merger and acquisition talks as Internet gambling companies move to mitigate their billions of dollars in on-paper losses. These losses result directly from the protectionist and ill-conceived attempt by US legislators to ban it’s citizens from ‘yet to be defined’ online gambling activities through ‘yet to be determined’ measures.
While the citizens of ‘The Land of The Free’ are just beginning to comprehend the potential impact of their legislator’s actions, traditional casino operators and bookmakers, like Ladbrokes, are circling hungrily.
Cherry picking the best assets at bargain bin prices seems to be the current focus. Analysts are aware of a number of potential ‘sharks’ keen to claim existing online operator’s technology and marketing expertise.
Ladbrokes are playing coy as you’d expect, but a Ladbrokes spokesperson has recently confirmed “It would be unusual if we were not to look at opportunities in the sector”.
Several analysts are punting for the Ladbrokes move to include well known, but decidedly sickly, 888.com. The 888.com crew has been less than coy about their own talks with another suffering gaming company, PartyGaming.
Ladbrokes already has a significant UK and European online poker presence (LadbrokesPoker.com) and operates a Microgaming-based online casino (LadbrokesCasino.com) from it’s Gibraltar base, so it will be interesting to see what emerges once the waters are less bloody.
The team at www.CasinoLabRat.com is urging all online operators to take the opportunity to officially adopt the EURO as the global default currency for online transactions rather than the US Dollar. The USA has demonstrated it’s lack of comprehension of the utility, boundrylessness and value of the Internet as a medium.
Elle
Add comment November 1st, 2006
