EVEREST POKER SOLD TO BETCLICK

Date	December 2009
Price	$100,000,000
Asset	Everest Poker & Everest Casino
Buyer
Status	Business as usual
Software	Yes
Success

Everest Poker was sold to Mangas Gaming for more than $100 million. Mangas Gaming is a major French gaming company owned by the Prince of Monaco.

When the sale took place Mangas gaming had been on a shopping spree and bought two other major gaming companies.

Expekt was acquired a few months earlier, which was a Swedish bookmaker with a large costumer base in Scandinavia. Another sports book named Bet-at-Home had also been acquired the same year.

Everest Poker was at the time of the purchase one of the biggest independant poker rooms in the world.

Mangas Gaming paid $100 million to Everest Poker's parent company, GigaMedia, in exchange for 60% of the shares of GigaMedia. GigaMedia is a publicly traded company on NASDAQ Stock Exchange, where it can be found under the symbol “GIGM.”

The purchase did not prove to be a success due to the French regulations which were introduced 6 months later. You can read more about ARJEL who forced all French operators to ring fence its players and pay French gaming taxes.

The French poker ring fence caused Everest Poker's player base to split in two because a whopping 50% of its players were from France.

EverestPoker.fr is today (July 2012) the 3rd biggest French network with an average of 710 cash players daily. This is a great position. Everest Poker's international network is currently the 11th biggest in the world with an average of 620 daily cash game players.¹

When Mangas Gaming bought Everest Poker the poker room had 4700 cash players daily so it has been an uphill battle to maintain its position. The EverestPoker.com acquisition must be considered a failure. The revenues it was generating at the time of the purchase have plummeted and a large part of the profits from EverestPoker.fr is paid to the French Tax Department.

Read more about the history of Everest Poker

1. Pokerscout.com July 20, 2012