Pokerroom closes one year after relaunch
Small team had been working on brand after it was brought back by owner bwin.party last year.
Bwin.party has shut down its Pokerroom.com skin on the Ongame network, just one year after reintroducing it to the market following a hiatus of almost three years.
The move follows the migration of bwin players onto the PartyPoker platform in December, with the site remaining on the Ongame network for a short period of time. It had sat on the network in the years before it first closed in 2009, and remained with Ongame after the network was acquired by Amaya Gaming last October.
The Pokerroom rebirth was described as a “soft-launch” at the time, with a spokesman saying “We’re testing the waters to see what level of interest there is,” however it has now been closed along with its long-standing “Pokah!” forum.
Players on the site will be able to login and withdraw their outstanding balances until 19 March, with a note on its website encouraging players to deposit with PartyPoker.
A small team had been working on the offering, but today a spokesman for bwin.party explained to eGaming Review that “Pokerroom.com has always been a great brand, but we are doing so much right now and we need to prioritise things.”
In last November’s third-quarter interim management statement, bwin.party revealed that it was poised to undertake “A complete repositioning and relaunch of PartyPoker in the first half of 2013.”
The first half of 2013 will also see the rollout of the Zynga Plus Poker brand following the partnership agreed between bwin.party and Zynga in October last year.