Devilfish sells struggling online biz

Plagued by financial futility, licensing problems in the UK and poor integration into saturated markets, Devilfish Gaming was forced to unload its online business Devilfish Poker despite a fairly strong brand name.

Devilfish Poker has been sold to an unamed third party for £330,000 and an additional £40,000 with the balance being satisfied through the issue of new ordinary shares in the acquiring company whose shares are listed on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange. The sale is not yet complete and is subject to satisfactory completion
of due diligence and legal process, it’s safe to say it’s pretty much a done deal.

This sale comes as no surprise to anyone in the industry. In mid September Devilfish Gaming Plc, the publicly listed parent company of DevilfishPoker.com, had requested its shares be suspended pending clarification of its financial position. It’s board of directors at that time were already in discussions with its advisers regarding options for either selling or restructuring the Company and possible sources of new working capital.

It’s just been a long list of failed moves for the company. It was a failed move when it dove into the highly competitive B2B sector with its deal with Italian facing operator Merkur Win and it was another failed move into the saturated online bingo market when it launched DevilfishBingo.com in January. Coupled with its inability to obtain UK whitelist status and it’s inability to penetrate the highly competitive UK market and this sale was little more than a formality.