bwin
 | |
| Company type | Public (WBAG: BWIN) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Founded | 1999 |
| Headquarters | Vienna, Austria |
Key people | Manfred Bodner (co-CEO), Norbert Teufelberger (co-CEO), Hannes Androsch (Chairman of the supervisory board) |
| Products | Sports betting, online gambling |
| Revenue | €403.5 million (2008)[1] |
 (€17.9 million) (2008)[1] | |
| (€12.8 million) (2008)[1] | |
Number of employees | 1,410 (2008)[1] |
| Website | www.bwin.org |
bwin Interactive Entertainment AG (WBAG: BWIN), formerly Betandwin.com (until 2006), is an Austrian based online betting company. The group operates under international and regional licences in countries like Gibraltar, the Amerindian reserve of Kahnawake (Canada), and Belize; and Germany, Italy, Mexico, Croatia, Austria and, the United Kingdom in Europe. The Group offers sports betting, poker, casino games, and soft games with most revenue coming from poker and sports betting. Competence centres are located in Vienna, Stockholm, and Gibraltar.[2]
The parent company, bwin Interactive Entertainment AG, has been listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange since March 2000. The Company provides services for its subsidiaries such as marketing, finance and administration, corporate communications, controlling and IT services. All operational activities are managed by licensed subsidiaries.
On the 15 September 2006, Norbert Teufelberger and Manfred Bodner were arrested [3] at a press conference in La Turbie, France, due to offenses against the French gambling laws. After an investigation the judge released them on the evening of September 18, 2006.
As of October 2006, bwin no longer takes bets from United States players, due to the signing of the Safe Port Act.[4][dead link]
On 6 March 2007, the European Court of Justice struck down Italian national gambling restrictions in the Placanica case.[5][dead link]
The EFTA Court held hearings in January 2007 to decide on the admissibility of a state monopoly for betting and gaming according to European Law. The decision of the EFTA Court will be made on 14 March 2007.
In September 2009, bwin announced the acquisition of Italian poker operator Gioco Digitale, marking the company's entry into the Italian online gambling market.[6]
Products
The company's subsidiaries and affiliated companies offer sports betting, poker, casino games and soft games, as well as audio and video streams on sporting events, such as the German Bundesliga. These are all provided via the Internet, and many are also available via other digital distribution channels, such as mobile phone.
bwin Games AB
bwin Games AB — founded in 1999 and formerly known as Ongame e-solutions AB — became part of the bwin Group following its acquisition, in March 2006, by bwin Interactive Entertainment AG.
Within the bwin Group, bwin Games AB acts as the competence centre for poker and casino games, developing products via digital distribution channels for bwin proprietarily owned brands, such as PokerRoom.com, HoldemPoker.com, eCardroom.com, PokerGaming.com, Europoker.com, and the Ongame Network partners.
PokerRoom.com
PokerRoom.com was an online poker cardroom founded in 1999. Licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, PokerRoom offered both play and real money formats. Tournaments and ring games were available in both web-browser and download client platforms, with support for both Macintosh and Linux. PokerRoom was one of the first online poker sites to provide multi-language support, and catered to Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, and Swedish speakers. These languages were accessed via "regional sites," many of them showing local sponsoring for the selected region.
Legal issues
PokerRoom also maintains a play money only site, PokerRoom.tv, that is advertised in Canada on the boards of National Hockey League rinks, as well as on U.S. television networks like ABC.
Awards
PokerRoom has won industry awards such as Poker Site of the Year from the UK Gambling Awards in 2006 and Top Poker Software from the Online Gambling Magazine Awards in 2005.
Shutdown
After 10 years of operation, bwin announced the closure of PokerRoom.com on April 14, 2009. Players with money still left in their accounts were encouraged to transfer their balance and play at bwin.com.[7] However, PokerRoom.com players with large "play money" accounts had to abandon those accounts when transferring to bwin.com.
Sponsorship
Among bwin's sponsoring activities, the group is a partner of leading European sports.
bwin currently sponsor football giants Real Madrid and A.C. Milan, as well as Slovan Liberec of the Czech Republic; they have also sponsored Bayern Munich in the past, as well as the top Portuguese football league from 2005 to 2008, where the league was known as Liga betandwin.com for one season, then switched to BWINLIGA.
Sponsoring contracts have been made with other sports, such as the MotoGP World Championship, the Green Dragon team in the 2008–09 Volvo Ocean Race[8], the International Basketball Association (FIBA), the Kite Surf Pro Tour in Tarifa (Spain), as well as many other top events in the international and local sports world.
The bwin.com logo appears in the music video for Lady Gaga's hit single "Poker Face".[9]
The company have faced some opposition in Europe over sponsorship of sports, especially football. In 2006 Bremen banned its top football team, Sportverein Werder Bremen, from carrying the bwin logo on its shirts.[10] In November 2009, the city acted further by moving against sports stores which sold shirts from other teams (such as Milan and Real Madrid).[citation needed]
Awards
At the annual EGR Awards organized by eGaming Review magazine, bwin won the "Operator of the Year 2009" award.[11]
Notes
- ^ a b c d "Annual Report 2008" (PDF). bwin. Retrieved 2009-10-03.
- ^ Google Finance: bwin Interactive Entertainment AG
- ^ Online gambling bosses arrested in France via the Guardian
- ^ bwin: US SAFE Port Act signed into law by President George W. Bush
- ^ EU Court Strikes Down Italian Gambling Restriction via Bloomberg
- ^ Bwin buys Gioco Digitale for push on new Italy market, egrmagazine.com, 14 September 2009, accessed 3 December 2009.
- ^ Bwin Announces PokerRoom.com Shutdown, 4flush.com, 15 April 2009, accessed 20 April 2009.
- ^ "bwin and United Games to sponsor Volvo Ocean Race team and let gamers steer the boat". unitedgames.info. 2009-05-15.
- ^ bwin features in the Lady Gaga hit "Poker Face"
- ^ [1] Werder Bremen to Appeal Betting Firm Sponsor Ban in Court
- ^ Bwin crowned EGR Operator of the Year 2009, egrmagazine.com, 1 December 2009, accessed 3 December 2009.
