POKER.COM NETWORK SOLD TO MERGE GAMING
| Date | January 2007 |
| Price | ? |
| Assets | Poker.com skin & software, not the domain. |
| Buyer |  |
| Status | Network and skins still operating |
| Software | Yes |
| Success |  |
Poker.com's poker network & software technology was sold to what is now known as Merge Gaming. The Poker.com network was established in 2004 but at the time the purchase took place the name Merge Gaming was not invented yet.
The reason for the sudden sale was that the majority shareholder, one of Australia's richest businessmen named Dean, decided to get out of the US poker market when the UIGEA was signed into law. Poker.com did not have any skins at the time and continued to accept US players while the sales talks were taking place.
Poker.com was due to its name primarily a US focused network with a lot of generic traffic coming from google.com. The software was impeccable and still is this day (2012). The software company now called Merge Gaming (after the sale) has some of the best programmers in Australia.
When Merge Gaming saw the light of day back in January 2007 it also came up with a new name for its poker room. It would no longer be called Poker.com but instead Carbon Poker. The Poker.com skin continued to exists for a long time along with the other "Poker Dot Com" skin PDC Poker.
The domain Poker.com was not included in the deal. I returned to being an online poker portal.
The sales price is secret but it is widely believed that Merge Gaming bought the company based on how much funds the company had. If this is true this is quite astonishing.
Any person with knowledge about the poker industry would know that this is a disastrous way to valuate a company. Most of the funds in the company belong to the players and should be segregated from the operation. Only the revenue (rake) generated from the poker and casino games reveal the true value of the company. Obviously you have to value the player database, the brand and the software.
Poker.com had more than 1,000,000 players in its database with 200 real money players on average at the time so one can wonder how much profits it generated as a poker room and as a 'network' (It only became a network after the sale and the first skin to launch was PokerNordica in February 2007)
99% of Merge Gaming was later signed over to the owner of Sportsbook.com who entered the network in April 2010. It is believed the network had major cash flow problems due to the original purchase price was too high and the network suffered from non-payment by one or several of its credit card processors.
We believe the network despite the messy history behind the scenes is safe place to play since Sportsbook.com is backing the company. Read more about Merge Gaming.