Empire Sale? -- Empire Online Limited says it has received an offer from an interested party that wants to acquire all of its issued share capital through a mixture of cash and shares totaling £790 million. Shares opened today at 245p and rose to 270p (the price offered by the potential buyer) after investors scooped up many shares. Most people who care to speculate assume that the unnamed company offering the deal must be PartyGaming. At the end of July financial group Smith Barney, a division of Citigroup, published a report analyzing the relationship between the two recently floated Internet poker companies. According to the report, "We see Empire as a troublesome child to PartyGaming, small but growing faster and taking more than its fair share of the budget. We think PartyGaming's best option is to tie Empire in by buying it." . . . Empire Online also announced today that it had appointed its non-executive director Andrew Burns to replace Yossi Pereg as the company's CFO. Pereg is stepping down because of personal reasons.
Israeli Lottery -- Mifal Hapayis, the operator of Israel's national lottery, has signed a contract with lotteries solutions provider Intralot that will result in the launch of Internet-based lottery services around the beginning of 2006. Built on Intralot's B-On gaming platform, Mifal Hapayis' new interactive system, "E-Pais," will offer five games--Chance, 777, Keno, 123 and Lotto--and will be available in Hebrew, English, Russian and Arabic. Mifal Hapayis' chairman of the board, Shimon Katznelson, who estimates that the online games should increase sales growth by 2 percent, has stated on several occasions that foreign online gambling sites have threatened the Israeli lottery's income. He estimates that Israelis spend about 1 billion shekels (US$223 million) on foreign online gambling and 13 billion shekels ($2.9 billion) on other forms of illegal gambling.
Orbis Grows -- U.K.-based online gaming software provider Orbis has acquired U.K.-based game design company NT Media and the entirety of its share capital for a consideration that may vary between £1.6 million and £4 million in cash, dependent upon future performance. NT Media has a stable of more than 50 games and has serviced clients such as Ladbrokes and SkyBet across multiple channels. All NT Media employees will join Orbis and will continue to service existing NT Media customers in addition to working with Orbis in developing new games concepts and a fully fledged casino software package that will be offered as a fully integrated module of the Orbis OpenBet product family. Orbis is a wholly owned subsidiary of open end-to-end digital pay TV solutions company NDS Group Plc, which is itself a subsidiary of News Corporation.
Leaving After All -- After denying rumors only two weeks ago that it planned to switch poker software providers, Malta-based Scandinavian online gaming operator Expekt has confirmed that it will indeed leave Microgaming's Prima Poker Network so that it can join the Tain network on Oct. 23. Tain has provided Expekt with bookmaking software since the operator launched in 1999 and with casino software since 2003. Expekt will become the largest member of the Tain network, which currently provides poker solutions to Scandinavian sports books Pointbet and Scandic Bookmakers.
Race-O -- The launch of Race-O, the new "superbet" on British horseracing spearheaded by former Betdaq managing director Rob Hartnett, will apparently miss its initial estimated launch date of sometime this summer. Involving eight races each Saturday afternoon, the Race-O product offers the punters the chance to win a fortune for only a very small stake. Hartnett says the structure of the bets as well as the technological aspects of the service are complete.
Hurricane Relief -- Similar to efforts undertaken after the tsunami disaster at the end of 2004, several online gambling companies are pitching in to offer relief to victims of the hurricane the swept much of the U.S. Gulf Coast. Absolute Poker, which raised $14,000 for victims of the tsunami, is matching donations through several online tournaments that will benefit the Red Cross. All proceeds, including the sums that would ordinarily be paid to tournament winners, will be donated to the relief effort. . . . CardPlayer.com will donate proceeds from its "King of the Gridiron" sweepstakes to the American Red Cross. The efforts have so far raised more than $1,500. . . . Bodog.com will hold five benefit tournaments Sept. 8-12 and will match and donate all of the players' fees to the Red Cross.
P-Mac -- California-based skill gaming software company CyberArts has exclusively licensed a poker software platform written specifically for Macintosh computers to Malta-based Skill Games ltd., operator of the GamesGrid brand. The lead developer on the project is Chris Derossi, a poker player who was a chief architect of the Macintosh operating system for Apple Computers. The software is in beta testing, with a worldwide launch expected within a week or two.
Welcome Aboard -- I-gaming software provider CryptoLogic Inc has appointed veteran British business executive Nigel Simon as a non-executive director of the company's board of directors. Simon served for 20 years in senior management roles at U.K.-based international tobacco company Gallaher Group, where he grew the company's international profits by more than 600 percent over a 10-year period and led an acquisition and integration of an Austrian manufacturer.