Talks between Sportingbet and Empire Online have reached an impasse, and now that the sports betting giant seems to have lost interest in buying out online poker's most famous skin the stock of Empire Online has dropped like a stone.
Sportingbet bought Paradise Poker as their first foray into the world of online poker, and fresh off that successful acquistion they entered into talks with Empire Online. They operate Empire Poker, a skin of Party Poker, and if they had gone ahead with the deal it would have made Sportingbet the second largest online poker operator in the world. It would have also had a serious impact on Party Poker, which now relies on Empire for upwards of 30% of all new players.
The deal was halted on September 20 and the market reacted quickly by selling Empire Online to the tune of 150 million pounds of market value. The company's stock dropped 20% and traded as low as 202.5 pence.
