Empire Online, the affiliate with a billion dollars market cap on the London Stock Exchange that I wrote about recently, is now in merger talks. The offer on the table is for 700 million pounds, or 1.3 billion dollars. Empire is doing pretty well for an affiliate, although they recently acquired some back end technology.
Empire generates 10% of the business Party Poker, and one might think that Empire is talking with Party Poker, the company they have been affiliated with for years. Think again. It’s the competition Sportingbet.
And, I always get worried that one of my top search affiliates will go work for the competition. This is a whole different ballgame.
I would agree that being an affiliate for a company doesn’t a business make. PartyPoker could turn off their affiliate program right now based on this, just to make a point and shut the entire business down.
But then they will just go work for the competition. Lead gen for the highest bidder. That’s the game.
Cheers,
Beth
I would be surprised if PartyPoker doesn’t get more involved with this. In light of the recent fall in PartyPoker’s stock, the last thing they need right now is to lose another chunk of their player base.