Predictions for Online Gambling Business in 2010

February 8, 2010 (CAP Newswire) – Blame it on the Bwin and PartyGaming consolidation rumors that have been going strong for months now, but the mainstream financial media continues to focus on the increasing likelihood that the online gambling industry will undergo a wave of consolidation soon, possibly this year.
Reports such as this recent article in Reuters are typical lately: “Consolidation among online gaming firms is set to spark into life in 2010 with a possible deal between PartyGaming and Austria’s bwin seen as the potential catalyst for a wave of takeover activity,” begins the report by Matt Scuffham, a London-based financial analyst.
“I think 2010 is going to be the determining year,” the article quoted an online gambling industry “senior executive” who requested to go unnamed. “I do think there’s going to be a domino effect, meaning the first deal gets everybody else to run. You don’t want to be the last one left without a partner.”
The article speculates that, if PartyGaming and Bwin do merge, the likelihood is that a wave of consolidation would sweep the industry so that the other players could stay competitive with the huge new PartyGamiing/Bwin brand. That wave would probably include the online gambling world’s other big brands, such as Sportingbet, Playtech, and 888.
Considering that such news outlets as Reuters, The Financial Times, and Bloomberg have all recently reported on this topic, it’s a safe bet to assume that, when it comes to the online gambling industry, the mainstream financial media is already banking on widespread online gambling brand consolidation to buoy stock prices.
So what would such a wave of big-name online gambling brand consolidation mean for affiliates? It’s not easy to predict for sure, but if some of the online gaming affiliate marketing world’s biggest brands linked up, that could mean their respective affiliate marketing brands are combined, as well. However, more likely is the chance that those brands would continue to be marketed separately, but under the same affiliate program — perhaps such as the Cereus network markets both UltimateBet (UB.com) and Absolute Poker as separate Internet poker brands under one affiliate marketing program partner.