Morning Brief: Poker Partnerships to Proliferate?

With your morning coffee or afternoon tea:

Ladbrokes, the land-based and online gambling operator, has revealed first-half profits before tax of £134 million, with earnings before interest and taxes -- excluding £40 million from high rollers -- of £130 million. The company also announced that, from the 2009 fiscal year, it will merge its poker network with that of Microgaming Software Systems Ltd.

IGN’s Take: Poker network mergers may become a banal phenomenon with player liquidity, especially in Europe, becoming an ever more finite and expensive commodity. As the move is likely to represent a step change for Ladbrokes Poker, we will watch to see if William Hill -- whose concerns with CryptoLogic Ltd. are well documented -- will make a sooner-than-expected move to another network.

London Capital Group Holdings, a financial spread-betting company, reported first-half revenue of £12.5 million, up 54 percent against the comparable period last year.

Three Florida men pleaded guilty in Federal District Court, in St. Louis, to online gambling-related charges. The trio was involved with promoting BetonSports, the defunct sports betting operator.