Forbes: How Wall Street Money Transformed Online Gambling
On Monday, Forbes.com put out a report describing how activist Wall Street investor Jason Ader has transformed the face of online gambling in recent years.
The article discusses how Ader flew to Israel where he met up with PartyPoker founder Ruth Parasol and her ex-husband. Ms. Parasol still owned a large chunk of PartyPoker (now Bwin.party) stock. Ader would eventually take control of half of those shares.
Bwin.party has been in the news of late for a bidding war currently taking place between two other gambling firms, 888 Holdings and GVC.
From Forbes.com:
These sorts of symbolic hand-offs have been reshaping the online gambling industry, moving it away from the bold risk-taking entrepreneurs who pioneered the business and putting new players in control, often in a way that represents a clean break from an era where the creators of the online gambling industry were bumping into governments and law enforcement, particularly in the U.S. Just like Michael Milken’s financings had backed Steve Wynn to remake Las Vegas years ago, the transformation of online gambling is being driven by Wall Street and some of the biggest names in finance, firms like Blackstone, BlackRock, Apollo, and Cerberus Capital Management. In the next few weeks, the reshaping of the online gambling industry will hit a new stage as a bidding war sparked by Ader for Bwin.Party comes to its conclusion.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
