CyberArts buy no threat to Party tie, Intralot says

INTRALOT CONTINUES TO see PartyGaming as a potential business-to-business (B2B) partner in regulating markets despite clinching a deal to buy its own software provider, US-based CyberArts, Intralot said today.

As reported on EGRMagazine.com, Intralot’s I2 egaming arm last week invested around US$12m for a 35% stake in California’s CyberArts, despite Intralot entering a cooperation agreement with PartyGaming in April to roll out in regulating markets on the back of the two companies’ poker partnership in the Italian market.

Intralot this afternoon followed up PartyGaming’s comments on EGRMagazine.com that Party was “comfortable” with the CyberArts deal, emphasising that the CyberArts acquisition should be seen as complementary to the PartyGaming tie, which was announced at the same time as their Italian poker partnership.

An Intralot spokesperson said: “Every further opportunity will be judged separately as to the optimal partnerships that we will structure, for that market, evaluating the terms and conditions set forward every time by the regulatory initiatives. PartyGaming is certainly one of our good potential partners.”

The spokesperson for the Greek lottery systems provider also expanded on the CyberArts deal, however, saying: “Our investment in CyberArts signals our interest in high-value technology that will allow us to offer a complete and state-of-the-art offering to our clients, within the upcoming wave of regulatory initiatives.”

Referring to Intralot’s B2B relationship with Party in Italy, the spokesperson said: “The existing arrangement with PartyGaming in Italy is to offer poker services based on a common Italian liquidity pool. We have just concluded our integration of our platforms and are now active in promoting our recently launched service, with very positive business performance and growth month over month.”

For more on the Italy market, see eGaming Review‘s November Italy market data focus.