Bwin’s Acquisition of Gioco Digitale: How It Foregrounds Bwin’s European Development
Posted on 16. Sep, 2009 by admin in News, Online Poker
Austrian online betting corporation Bwin has for a long time held a wish to extend its business into the market in continental Europe. Bwin is already well established in business circles and in the online gaming and gambling industries in Austria, but a natural need for its business to extend has seen a desire to manifest itself in countries such as Portugal in the past. Its recent acquisition of Gioco Digitale, the biggest provider of online poker and gaming operations in Italy, has clearly begun this journey for Bwin. The opportunity for further extension into the continent is now looking far brighter for the corporation, which is currently based in Austria.
Now that a very large part of Italy’s gaming and gambling empire is under its control, Bwin has certainly got the manpower to be able to extend its business wherever its needs require it to go. As long as it stay within the laws of the countries that it wishes to expand into, there appears to be no further problem. One may think, however, that extending into Italy and taking on such a big responsibility may be enough for Bwin to deal with at this point. Before it extends further into continental Europe, it is likely to want to establish itself in Italy.
Bwin’s recent acquisition of Gioco Digitale, and henceforth all the power that comes with it, is also likely to have given it more clout within the gaming industry world stage. Bwin is currently embroiled in a legal wrangling with the Portugal courts, over the fact that it cannot extend into the country because of strict laws on who can control gambling. However, once Bwin proves itself as a serious organisation that has the power to bring in great amounts of positive revenue for the country it has expanded into, other countries in Europe are much more likely to want it to share some of its worth with them. Bwin also has plans to extend Gioco Digitale, although these plans are hardly likely to have been finalised yet, and this is likely to see it be able to further establish itself as a major worldwide brand.