[bigboydan]

02.12.2006 (11:35 AM CST)
Merger and Aquistion activety at all time high. VIP Sports is the most active buyer. YouWager, Royal and many smaller books are all said to be Sellers actively seeking buyouts. BetCRIS could also be a Buyer under the right circumstances which recently has focused on bailing out small operators. BetWWTS has made several trips and has signed at least one confidentiality agreement although we are unaware of any serious interest. Sportsbooks who have had made M&A headlines in the recent past that appear to be holding pat; Hollywood, BoDog, SportsInteraction are said to be no longer active Sellers. Smaller operations such as BetMaker, YouWager and Sportbet along with operations that have difficult reputations such as Royal Sports have mostly signed confidentiality agreements giving buyers a chance to possibly make an offer. SBR expects a pick-up in M&A activity despite rising valuations.

[JoshW]

Don't like it, consolidation is rarely good for the players, especially when most of the books mentioned have been offering great value to players for a long time while paying with very few issues.

[SBR_John]

There have been a few deals that have got stuck due to the rising valuations. Even so, I think we will get a deal every couple of weeks until early summer. Maybe not a VIP buys Nine size deal but a few small ones and one or two larger ones.

[pags11]

so other than computer equipment and the right to talk to existing employees, aren't the mergers more about getting the client list and trying to get them to become customers of the other book?...I'm just interested to hear what all is included in the aquisition....