Party Poker New Owners of World Poker Tour
Well, it’s official. The World Poker Tour is officially under new ownership. Sealing the deal with $12.3 million and a $3 million per year revenue sharing deal for 3 years, PartyGaming, owners of PartyPoker, one of the world’s most prominent poker sites, is now the new owner of the world’s second most popular live poker series, The World Poker Tour.
An interesting note of trivia on PartyGaming: until recently its CEO and the man responsible for its overwhelming success in a cutthroat game, the online poker and gambling business, was Mitch Garber, who is now the CEO of Harrah’s Entertainment, owners of the famed casino where the World Series of Poker just finished playing out for another year (w/21-year-old online heads-up budding pro Joe Cada winning it all).
An interesting note of trivia on The World Poker Tour: its longtime commentator, Mike Sexton, who just got inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame at Harrah’s Casino during the play of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, is the main celebrity pro representing PartyPoker.
And the circle stays unbroken.
Now for an interesting note on the PartyGaming/WPT transaction: it was a steal for Party Gaming considering that an earlier effort to squeeze the site out of the running for the WPT purchase in the way of a $36 million offer by Mandalay Media was rejected. Guess PartyGaming had a bit more to offer the WPT franchise outside of a big upfront payoff.
Well, one thing’s sure likely: we should be starting to see more WPT satellites on PartyPoker.com before too long.
