The World Poker Tour (WPT) is one of the most popular poker tours on the circuit. The WPT recently announced that it has been acquired by Ourgame International Holdings Ltd for a sum of $35 million. The WPT confirmed that the acquisition was completed based “on a debt-free, cash-free basis” and full details of the acquisition can be found at http://iis.aastocks.com/20150622/002236164-0.PDF
Ourgame International Holdings Ltd is a Hong Kong based company that offers a number of internet board and card games across numerous platforms.
The company is a specialist in social gaming and has an extensive database that is estimated to be over 500 million gamers.
The company had earlier worked together with the WPT in order to launch the WPT National China at MGM Grand Sanya Resort.
In a statement, WPT President & CEO Adam Pliska said
Having already established an exciting partnership with Ourgame, a high-growth company led by an enthusiastic group that is fully invested in the global growth of the sport of poker, we are delighted to now become a fully-integrated member of the Ourgame family. I want to thank bwin.party CEO Norbert Teufelberger and bwin.party CFO Martin Weigold for all of their support over the last six years, and for helping facilitate this agreement.
The WPT was earlier acquired by bwin.party back in 2009 for a sum of $12.3 million. Priority to the bwin.party acquisition, the WPT used to host a total of 16 WPT Main Tour stops. Once bwin.party took over, the WPT expanded and now hosts over 70 total events that is spread between the WPT Main Tour, WPT National, WPT DeepStacks and WPT Alpha8.
Ourgame CEO Frank Ng stated that the company went after the WPT because of the strong brand presence the WPT had built over the years with the international poker community. Ourgame will continue to build the WPT brand and look to increase the number of events and take the WPT to more cities and homes using a variety of mediums such as television, smartphones, card tables and social media.
Ourgame’s acquisition of the WPT is inclusive of all WPT owned businesses including the existing episode library, the live poker tour, the subscription based ClubWPT.com and all intellectual property rights. The acquisition of the WPT will be completed on the 25th of June and none of the WPT scheduled or upcoming events will be affected due to the sale.
