It comes as no surprise to most people involved in the online gaming industry that there’s a lot of money to be made from real-money gaming, but nowadays especially from the social gaming industry. One of the leaders in that area is Big Fish Games, who has created a variety of different social casino/poker games, as well as other fun games to play.
Churchill Downs Inc. announced a few months ago that they were interested in taking over the company and that they were finalizing the deal. The deal has now been finalized and could potentially be worth $885 million for the owners and shareholders in Big Fish Games.
The deal is quite big, but does come with different targets to reach and such to amount to that amount. The first payment will be $485 million cash payment, which includes stocks, interest payments, debts and so on. An additional $350 million can be earned by the owners of Big Fish Games, should their company be able to perform well enough, with a special $50 million bonus to the Chief Executive Officer Paul Thelen if the company reaches its targets.
“The acquisition of Big Fish and our entry into the rapidly growing mobile and online games industry gives us new products, new customers, new geographies and new sizeable growth opportunities. While many will view this transaction as a logical extension to what we currently do with Twinspires.com, what is most important to us are the strong team and the processes and capabilities that have been built by Big Fish in Seattle, Oakland, and Luxembourg.” Bill Carstanjen, Chief Executive Officer of Churchill Downs Inc said in a press release.