bwin.party published its first financial results since the merger of PartyGaming and bwin, Thursday. Although overall revenue has increased slightly, a drop in poker revenue has spurred an aggressive plan to bring new poker products and services to the network.
bwin.party will pursue social gaming as well as proprietary mobile applications to bring growth to the poker platform. It is also developing a Rush Poker-like “fast-fold” poker variant and hopes to launch in regulated European and US state markets.
The financial results is for the period from March 31, 2011—when bwin and PartyGaming merged—to the end of the year. However, according to PokerScout, there has been a notable drop in poker traffic at PartyPoker since then, so the financials only tell a part of the story. The PartyPoker poker network still maintains its position as the second largest poker network, but is dwarfed by industry leader PokerStars.
bwin.party sees opportunity in newly regulated markets. Commenting on yesterday’s financial results, Co-CEO’s Jim Ryan and Norbert Teufelberger confirmed that they had applied for licenses in Spain, Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein and had “secured business partners in the United States” ahead of regulation in Nevada and beyond.
Also on the horizon is the migration of players from the bwin poker site to the Party platform following the sale of the Ongame Network to Shuffle Master. This is expected to take place in the third quarter of 2011, with the combining of French liquidity by the end of the year.
It is a question of “when, not if” the US online poker market opens up, and it would present a significant opportunity for the company, stated CEO Norbert Teufelberger in a conference call with Bloomberg.
“It is a significant opportunity for the company because in our history, we had 50 percent market share, that market was close to three quarters of a billion dollars,” to the company,Teufelberger added.
