Boyd Gaming Corporation announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Boyd Interactive Gaming, will acquire Pala Interactive LLC and its subsidiaries for a total of $170 million. This purchase comes in the wake of Boyd Gaming and FanDuel Group launching Stardust Casino around this time last year in the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Keith Smith, President and CEO of Boyd Gaming, explained that “the acquisition of Pala Interactive marks the next phase in the ongoing execution of our iGaming strategy.”
The acquisition is expected to finalize in the first quarter of 2023, and will allow Boyd Gaming to integrate online experiences with its existing land-based operations. In a presentation about the acquisition, Boyd Gaming shared that the integration will help support the company’s growth in the coming years.
Boyd Gaming and FanDuel Group launched Stardust New Jersey in March 2021, followed by Stardust Pennsylvania in April 2021. The launch meant that FanDuel rebranded its existing Betfair Casino under Boyd Gaming’s Stardust brand while FanDuel Casino remained active in both states.
Boyd Gaming looked to use the new Pennsylvania online casino as a bridge to its physical location in the state, Valley Forge. With the acquisition of Pala Interactive, Boyd Gaming now has a stake in another Pennsylvania retail casino, Wind Creek, which currently offers a self-branded iGaming site, Wind Creek Online Casino & Sportsbook, powered by Pala.
For the New Jersey online casinos market, Pala Interactive offers Pala Poker & Casino, a relatively minor player in the extremely competitive NJ online casino and poker market.
In the company’s fourth-quarter 2021 earnings call, Boyd Gaming shared that it benefited from an increased focus on online betting, as well as the partnership with FanDuel. As the world continues to open up post-Covid, the company will be able to leverage its investment in both FanDuel and Pala to bring bettors back to in-person locations while maintaining its competitive edge in the online gaming space.
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