Bwin Party reaches agreement to sell the World Poker Tour to OurGame.com

Beijing-based social gaming developer, Ourgame, has recently purchased the World Poker Tour. The negotiations began on 2006, when the WPT went to China. The World Poker Tour became the official sponsor of the event Tractor Poker, under the Chinese Leisure Sports Administration’s supervision. The platform that was used to host the event was created by Ourgame. That was the first time for both firms to work together. The deal has only taken nine weeks from the very first moment both firms began the negotiations until the final acquisition on Friday June 19. WPT President and CEO Adam Pliska has been recently interviewed, letting us know the future of the World Poker Tour: “The nice thing is we know Ourgame, we have worked with them. I am excited. I have signed on for several more years with them, and it is lovely to be talking to an acquirer who does not want to come in and have a synergy conversation, but rather wants to talk about how are we going to build up Club WPT, and how are we going to use our social gaming resources to really make that a global success? To me, it is like, boy, we pulled a rabbit out of a hat and it is a good one. We have a partner that is not here to change the World Poker Tour. It is here to enhance it and make sure that for at least the next 10 years or so, nobody is going to be worried that World Poker Tour’s going away. First of all, I am a huge advocate that the base of the poker business community needs to have strong foundations. And not just us—I get people all the time asking me what I think about the World Series, and the answer is, there’s room for all of us, and we want everyone to have a strong base. Volatility is not good for anyone. The base of the business needs to be firm. If that happens, we can do a lot more. We can do a lot more different locations, we can do a lot more products. The average Joe, I suspect, is going to see a much better product for our online services, and that’s an introduction to the World Poker Tour for a lot of people. We’ve not been able to make the investments that we have wanted in the past—when you’re in a stressed financial place, you make different decisions than you would if you felt secure. Just like an individual, if you’ve got a lot of money sitting in the bank, you’ll take a different course of action. With a different foundation, and with the investment of Ourgame behind it, I think what you will see is World Poker Tour be able to innovate more and bring innovative products to the market much faster, because we don’t feel like: Oh, if we make an investment, this may be a drag to a larger organization. Ourgame is doing just fine. If you looked at their financials, they’re doing just fine. So I do think that this will help the average person experiencing the World Poker Tour. The World Poker Tour will be more accessible, the products will continue to get better, and we’ll be able to focus on the things that people want because we know that we have a long future.”