eGaming Morning Snapshot - 6 April 06/04/2009

PartyGaming announced an exclusive agreement today to launch an online poker tournament service in Italy for land-based lottery services provider Intralot. Intralot will promote the online poker product throughout its 600 betting outlets, both firms will also explore opportunities for providing online gaming services in other markets. PartyGaming chief executive Jim Ryan said the agreement was part of the company’s goal to expand its business-to-business operation, and highlighted Intralot’s presence in more than 50 countries. The agreement is PartyGaming’s third business-to-business deal this year, following the Cirsa and DM agreements in the past two months.

Unibet has continued to repurchase the €100m bond used to acquire the online bingo operator Maria Holdings. The bookmaker bought back an additional €4.9m of the bond. The total amount outstanding at 31 March 2009 was €65.8m.

CryptoLogic has signed a deal to provide Gala Coral with at least 10 of its online slots. Brian Hadfield, CryptoLogic's chief executive, said the deal reflected how the company’s strategy announced last year to refocus on its casino and branded gaming businesses “is paying off with a steady stream of new customers.” Gala Coral's head of new product development, Joe Coughlin, added: “CryptoLogic has some of the world's leading branded slot games, so partnering with them makes perfect sense.”

Mon Mome's 100-1 win in the Grand National on Saturday could represent a £200m windfall for the bookmaking industry, “worth perhaps £30m-£40m of EBIT to each of William Hill and Ladbrokes, a potential upgrade of around 20% to our PBT forecasts”, according to Evolution Securities. “While this is “only” a one-off it is a very useful contribution to cash and will underpin the potential to pay dividends,” the analyst firm said.

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Posted: 06/04/2009