PartyGaming, bwin eye US after $3.3 billion tie-up

PartyGaming and Bwin Interactive Entertainment, an Austrian online betting company, aim to merge and create the world’s biggest publicly traded online gambling business.

The “merger of equals” would create a company with pro forma gaming sales of $892 million last year, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of 196 million euros “before synergies,” the two companies said in a statement today. The company will be listed in London.

Shareholders of PartyGaming, operator of the PartyPoker online gambling site, would own 48.36 per cent of the enlarged company with 51.64 per cent by Bwin shareholders, according to the statement. PartyGaming Chief Executive Officer Jim Ryan, and Norbert Teufelberger, Bwin’s co chief, would be co-CEOs.

Measure legalising some online gambling passes US House panel

A House committee yesterday approved legislation that would legalise some internet gambling, allowing US residents to place online wagers with companies the Treasury Department has licensed.

The measure, sponsored by Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would roll back a law designed to block such betting. That four-year-old law, which took effect in June, bars banks from processing payments to offshore gambling websites.

“My primary goal is Americans ought to be free to do what they wish without this kind of intrusion,” said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat.