Aristocrat Sign US Online Poker Deal with Ongame

This week saw Amaya Gaming group announce a new deal with Aristocrat Technologies that will see a joint venture meaning that Aristocrat will be offering the Amaya owned Ongame poker platform to players in the US. Ongame was purchased from bwin.party last year and the Canadian gaming giant will now see Ongame accessible via Aristocrat's nLive online gaming platform. This platform offers land based gaming establishments and operators a great turnkey product of giving their customers an online casino tailored to their very own needs. It will of course be on a free play basis at present however the option is available to flick the switch to real money as and when that opportunity arises and regulation is in place. David Baazov Amaya CEO says that, "Aristocrat and Amaya share a common vision of integrating land-based gaming with online gaming, integrating our Online Poker offering into the Aristocrat nLive platform opens up a wide range of new opportunities in the United States. This is a strategic relationship in the most promising market in the world."

This week also saw Amaya release it's 2012 4th quarter results and they make healthy reading, seeing a year on year increase of 316% up to just over $75 million, however there was an overall loss of $7 million due to acquisitions. The loss was also put down to the fact that 2012 was a transitional year for the company and Baazov is confident that the purchases of both Ongame and Cryptologic will provide good revenue streams for the company in the US market moving forward, with Baazov commenting, "Looking ahead, we are focused on extending our footprint including through strategic partnerships in the United States where the regulation of online gaming continues to evolve, three states including New Jersey and Nevada have recently legalized online gaming and other states have tabled legislation that would do the same." It's certainly a market they are interested in and one that could be extremely profitable for them.