The big time news just keeps coming recently, and this time it is a potential combo punch between two of the biggest casino operations and the largest online gambling operation. MGM Resorts International has decided to pair with Boyd Gaming Corporation AND Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment to make a three headed online poker operation in the United States if online poker becomes legalized in the US. The exact aspects of the deal haven’t been finalized, but it looks like it would benefit the online poker giant Bwin.Party the most, with Boyd Gaming owning 10%, MGM owning 25%, and Bwin.Party owning all the rest of the operation.
Of course, the entire deal depends on what happens with online poker in the United States in the upcoming years. This really helps out both sides of the deal overall though, because MGM and Boyd will benefit quite a bit from using the Bwin.Party software, and for Bwin; it will get them almost instant entry into the United States gambling market once/if it becomes legalized. This is huge news for all three, and news that could expand business for them in the future.
Back in 2006, Bwin went along with another online poker company in PartyGaming when they decided to not allow United States based players to play on their site. One thing that many people actually don’t know about Bwin.Party is that they are the owners of the World Poker Tour as well, so they have been around in the live poker world for a bit now. This deal has a few issues that the sides will need to deal with, and of course the biggest one of all is figuring out if online poker will even be allowed in the US after Black Friday.
Assuming that online poker does end up legal in the US, this has the potential to be huge for not only the companies, but also for online poker players in general. The three headed monster between Boyd, Bwin.Party, and MGM has the potential to be massive, and also give players many reasons to join whatever online poker site the three end up creating.