Bwin tops Power 50 for second year running 29/09/2009
BWIN HAS BEATEN competitors including PartyGaming and Betfair to emerge once again as the number one operator in the Power 50 ranking of egaming's 50 leading operators.
New entrant Mangas Gaming and a revitalised William Hill Online also broke into the top 10 this year, which Bwin topped on the back of a surge in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 40% at the half-year point, major football sponsorships including those of Spanish football's Primera and Segunda leagues and the Austrian bookmaker's continued fight against monopolies in the EU courts.
These enabled Bwin to once again head off a revitalised PartyGaming, which came in second place despite Party's settlement with the US authorities and £100m buyout of bingo heavyweight Cashcade.
A sports betting operator with a complementary market presence is necessary for Party to continue the progress it made this year; chief executive Jim Ryan recently confirming that this is a key objective.
Betfair followed Bwin and Party on the back of strong financial results including a surge in EBITDA of almost 30%, while Bet365, which is also privately owned, climbs two places to fourth place on the basis of its turnover nearly doubling in 2009 to £3.4bn, according to the Sunday Times. Bet365's in-running platform is considered one of the leaders in the industry.
The uplift in William Hill Online's fortunes sparked by last year's deal with Playtech has seen it surge nine places from 14th place last year to fifth position in this year's list - in contrast with British high street rival Ladbrokes, which has fallen three places to sixth position after weak financial results at mid-year.
However Ladbrokes is known to be actively seeking partners and acquisition targets in markets outside of its core UK and Scandinavian markets, most notably in continental Europe and Australia, where it has been linked with bids for the Tasmanian Tote and a Victorian wagering licence.
As reported on EGRmagazine.com, Mangas has entered the Power 50 for the first time, taking Sportingbet's seventh place on the strength of it having acquired major scale and geographical reach over the past 18 months with its 75% stake in Betclick and acquisitions of Scandanavian brand Expekt and German and central Europe-focused Bet-At-Home. The company is now focused on strengthening its poker offering, and is rumoured to be in talks with Everest Poker.
Paddy Power and Unibet remained stable in eighth and ninth place respectively. Paddy Power kept its place by embarking on an expansion strategy that included the acquisition of a controlling stake in Australian sportsbook Sportsbet and subsequent acquisition of International All Sports via Sportsbet, while Unibet remained stably by continuing to dominate the Scandinavian bingo scene while diversifying its regional focus and signing sponsorship deals with Valencia and Paris St Germain football clubs.
To read the 2009 Power 50 top 10, click here, or to read the Power 50 positions 11-50, click here,
For more on the this year's ranking, see the eGaming Review Power 50 main
feature and the Power 50 letter from acting editor Jake
Pollard.
The 2009 Power 50 first appeared in the September issue of eGaming Review.
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Posted: 29/09/2009
User comments
Jon Parker, editor EGRmagazine.com
JSH: fair question.
The answer is that unlike PKR, PokerStars and Full Tilt continue to take US bets. As well as being bad for the two opeartors' long-term outlook (any legalised egaming market will look unfavourably on operators that continued to operate while egaming was still illlegal), in the short term this also gives them an unfair liquidity advantage over sites such as PKR that have heeded America's UIGEA egaming ban and never taken US bets.
The decision to include them or not was not an easy one, but we believe that our decision to remove them has not only lead to a more balanced list, but also to a list more representative of the new, respectable egaming industry that has emerged from the 'Wild West' days earlier in the decade.
However we welcome the views of you and other readers about whether we made the right decision...
JSH
Thank you for the reply. I think it's an important footnote.
From my point of view they're still pretty powerful even if they were to cease taking US bets if you compare them to a lot of others on the list.
Best,
Jonas Huttel
Journlist at Ekstra Bladet, Denmark
Ian Sutton
Hello Jon,
Poker Stars and Full Tilt are going to be around long after the eventual demise of the UIGEA (whenever that may be). If you had included them where do you think they'd be on the list - both top 5'ers ?
Julian
On the subject of US facing companies, where would the largest sportsbooks (Bodog, BetUS, sportsbook.com) that accept US customers sit in this list? Would they make the top 30?
Anonymous
Don't Party, Bwin, and other accept customers in Germany, in Netherlands, in Australia, in Canada, and in many other countries where governments say it's illegal? How is that different from Poker Stars and Full Tilt accepting customers from the US?
Also didn't US 3rd Circuit Federal Court of Appeals recently stated in their decision on the UIGEA:
"It bears repeating that the Act itself does not make any gambling activity illegal".
Yood
Taking PS and FT out of the list made for a bad, unbalanced and incorrect image of the market. Even without US, Pokerstars are the the biggest site, by far. With estimated revenue of $800M a year, even if half is US, they are still THE power in online poker. Claiming that post UIGEA they will be looked upon unfavourably is misleading, at the least, as this is unsubstantiated by anything. And, as said above me, putting companies who offer illiegal sport betting in other markets was ok for the list, apparently. I can't helpbut feel that this is something personal against PS and FT.
PS and FT
I don't agree with the last comment. Half is the very minimum that US players contribute, but more importantly, without the US players neither site would have the liquidity that is a major part of their appeal to non-US players. Take one half away and the other half will fall off too.
Anonymous
True that stars and tilt will be aorund long after UIGEA is dead and their impact on the industry will always be huge but the key difference about Bwin, Unibet etc taking bets from EU countries where legality is unclear is that Stars and Tilt operate and compete freely in the same markets as Bwin and Party, whereas Party and bwin have made the conscious decision not to take bets from the US and are therefore at a disadvantage from that point of view.
Also, go and ask the DOJ about how they view Stars and Tilt taking US bets, regardless of what the 3rd ciurcurit federal court of appeals says.
The Dandy Highwayman
PS and FT have clearly utilized their US liquidity to establish their current position in the global market. Whereas the legal environment remains ambiguous in a number of the markets mentioned in this tread, the signing into law of the UIGEA clearly transformed the US market from ‘grey’ to black’ for the majority. Those who spend their cash on looking flash and do not play by the rules should be disqualified; Bravo EGR!
Anonymous
>the signing into law of the UIGEA clearly transformed the US market from ‘grey’ to black’ for the majority.
So you know better how to interpret the laws than the US Federal Court of Appeals. How about you read the UIGEA itself and find where it made anything illegal.
The Handy Dighwayman
I agree with the Dandy Highwayman. Though you still get various idiots insisting that UIGEA didn't make online gambling illegal in the US, it clearly did - that was why every major gambling company expcet FT and PS received the same advice from their lawyers and pulled out. The same is not true for markets such as Germany, the Netherlands, Australia or Canada, where the courts have consistently failed to find online gambling illegal.
Anonymous
Handy & Dandy - you have no idea what you are talking about. I just quoted from the US Federal Court ruling. There were no court decisions that you claim in these other countries.
Jon Parker - can you respond to my points?
Jon Parker
Hello all - some very interesting points made here.
Last poster: respectfully, I am going to withdraw from this debate and leave you all to it, but we will be following up this debate in the next issue of the magazine.
I will also be writing something for publication online later today, so do all please keep your views coming.
UIGEA
Last anonymous poster: doesn't Handy Dighwayman make a good point? No operator making as much money as, for example, PartyGaming or 888 were from the US market would pull out of it if they felt they had any alternative.
And while I'm sure that my reading of UIGEA would be no more expert than yours, why did the lawyers for those companies all (reluctantly) reach the same conclusion?
Bigmouth Andy
Tend to agree with last poster: not only did Party, 888's etc lawyers advise them to pull out, but it's not like you see anyone from Stars walking up to DOJ officials to chew the fat over UIGEA being legal or not.
Anonymous
>why did the lawyers for those companies all (reluctantly) reach the same conclusion?
Good question, and I will attempt to answer.
First, while the question whether UIGEA has made Internet Gambling illegal could be debated before, it can't be debated any longer after the highest court (one below the US Supreme Court) stated very clearly that it hasn't. However that doesn't mean that Internet Gambling is legal in the US. The point of UIGEA was to stop financial institutions to process payments for the illegal gambling transactions, and UIGEA has relied on the previous laws to define what is and what is not legal.
So why did Party (and others) exited the US market after UIGEA passed? I can see three reasons:
a)Party felt (and one of their founders - Anurag Dickshit admitted) that they were in violation of other US gambling laws. Remember that Party, unlike PokerStars and Fulltilt, offered casino games and not just poker, and couldn't have the defense of game of skill, not chance. When UIGEA was enacted, Party's management decided that they won't be able to process money in the US, because of the enforcement role of UIGEA, not because it changed the legality of their operations.
b) While UIGEA didn't change the legality of Internet Gambling in the US, the public perception was, and still is, that it did. That resulted in pressure from Party's partners - banks, auditors, brokers, and others, to exit, and that pressure was stronger on public companies than on private companies. Note that the dividing line was that public companies exited, and private companies stayed.
c) There were high profile arrests of board members of UK public companies shortly before UIGEA - Carruthers from Bet on Sports, and Dicks from SportingBet. Party's board members were not thrilled by that, and while Party's investors took a huge hit when Party exited, the board didn't. So it wasn't such a difficult decision for them and UIGEA became a good reason to justify the exit to the shareholders.
Anonymous
Another thing that comes to my mind:
Why are there no affiliate companies in the list?
Whilst they are probably no match for bwin, I guess that at least PokerListings.com, PokerNews.com & PokerStrategy.com have a stronger position, bigger market shares, more shaping power & influence in the industry than many many of these Top50.
Whad do you think?
Anonymous
Dear EGR, Your justification for excluding companies active in the US is ridiculous, ill-conceived and myopic. Most of the companies on this list operate in many countries where online gaming is clearly illegal - such as EVERY country in Asia, MOST country in the Americas, and MOST countries in Europe. Your singling out FTP and PS for their activities in the US without also eliminating companies active in Turkey, China, Singapore, Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Holland (i.e. bwin and PartyGaming) shows that not only are you hypocrites, but you lack the fundamental judgment, balance and perspective to possibly reach any sound conclusion in determining your so-called "Power 50" list. You are tarted-up propaganda whores on your knees as simple apologists, salivating in front of your advertisers, pandering to B2B networks that pad your gossip rag with overpriced advertising while dreaming of the day you might have a shred of credibility in the panacea of US opportunity.
Ha!
I wonder where he works...
Anyway, re UIGEA making gambling illegal or not, even if companies just pulled out due to pressure from nervous investors, executives or payment companies, why were those investors, executves and payment companies nervous? Surely they too could simply have asked their lawyers, and been told that it wasn't illegal and stopped worrying?
HS
It is absurd to have left out PS and FTP. I know it makes for more exciting articles but you should try and stick to facts. The biggest being online poker is not a federal crime in the USA.
Completely agree with pointing out the hypocrisy of allowing companies into your "Power 50" that take customers from markets where it is strictly illegal to play online poker. While at the same time excluding some companies that take customers in the USA where online poker is not illegal.
Anonymous
It's a fake list!!
How come Yachting Casino, Casino Solera and Casino Paris Win are not in the list?
Also Roxy Palace...
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JSH
How come PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker is not on the list when a company like PKR is?!
That makes no sense ...
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