Online Casinos Think Twice About Flotation

Empire Online has taken a blow in the rough and tumble world of the stock market recently. The online marketing firm, which dredges up and ships off millions of customers to several different online casinos, such as PartyGaming and 888.com, lost some of its pending stock market allure when a highly talked about takeover failed to grow sea legs and hit the ground running. The coup was a brainchild of SportingBet, who announced their interest in the company last month, with offers of up to 270 pounds per share – bringing Empire Online’s total stock value up to a whopping 790 million pounds.

The deal-breaker seemed to be tie-ups concerning some tricky contractual agreements between the two online casinos, Party Gaming and Empire Online. Party Gaming happens to also be a huge competitor of SportingBet. Party Gaming’s online casinos provide Empire with 67% of its total revenue in return for the constant flow of customers from the online promoter. Interestingly, PartyGaming has also begun to show interest in bidding for Empire Online.

After Party Gaming announced they have observed the growth in the online casino industry to be slowing down, it has sent a shock wave of nervous energy throughout the online casino community. Both online casinos, 32Red and 88.com, have put the breaks on their no-holds-bar plans for flotation. 32 Red has thrown in the towel as far as collecting 10 million pounds in new capital is concerned – And 888 decided to turn out the deal of the century on their stock in order to woo investors back into bed.