PartyGaming, French giant PMU sign online poker deal
PartyGaming has signed a business-to-business deal with Pari Mutuel Urbain, the largest horse racing monopoly in Europe, to provide the French company with an online poker product...
PARTYGAMING has signed a business-to-business (B2B) deal with Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), the largest horse racing monopoly in Europe, to provide the French company with an online poker product.
The PMU-branded offering will be launched once PartyGaming and PMU have obtained the required licences, with player liquidity pooled with PartyGaming’s French poker network.
The deal is PartyGaming’s second B2B deal this year with a state-backed monopoly entering the online poker space, and follows PartyGaming’s January deal to provide Danish state lottery Danske Spil with poker and casino once the Danish market opens to private operators in early 2011.
PartyGaming chief executive Jim Ryan said: “Today’s agreement with PMU is consistent with our stated strategy of securing a small number of high-value partners in regulated markets.”
Both deals reflect Ryan’s strategy that B2B deals offer a vital hedge for PartyGaming against protectionist regulation in new markets.
PMU, which came 14th in the Power 50 2009, posted gross profit of 2.2bn and turnover of 9.3bn in 2009, 660m of which was generated online via the PMU.fr betting website.
The deal with PartyGaming is PMU’s second tie with a high-profile egaming operator after November’s agreement for Paddy Power to provide it with fixed-odds risk management and pricing tools.
In other PartyGaming news this month, chief executive Jim Ryan has revealed a new strategy for marketing the company’s casino products following a dramatic shift in fortunes away from poker and toward the casino vertical revealed in PartyGaming’s 2009 year-end results.
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