This article may seem to be published too late, but after you have read it up to the end you will see why it has appeared just now.

As you know, one of the biggest online operators, Cpays and the major UK gambling operator, Will Hill announced their merger in October, 2008.

Last October William Hill started to combine forces with Playtech, the top online gambling software provider. According to the deal, Playtech takes a 29% stake in William Hill Online, a new online gaming and sports betting operation, in return for folding in $250m worth of acquired affiliate businesses with lots of customers.

William Hill, in its turn, puts its existing online assets into this joint venture, owns the rest of William Hill Online and has full operational control. It also agreed to use Playtech’s software for casino games and poker for at least five years.

The Gambling Affiliate programs are set to merge in toto in 2009 but ad interim William Hill has taken over all operations from CPays.

It is considered one of the largest mergers in online gambling and sports betting history, with joining together the affiliate programs of William Hill, CPays and Webroute Affiliates, to create a new group – Affiliate Guarantees.

In regards to the merger Ralph Topping, Chief executive at William Hill, said: “This deal strengthens us. It was the right thing to do; we’ll have a much stronger business over the course of the next four years.”

But why are we publishing this article just at the point? Cpays had been a very strong player in the market before The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was approved in the end of 2006. But sometimes the company used spam technology (however, I think it was not the online operator who used it but webmasters who were working with them). Though, both the software and the gambling operator have rather good reputation and there have been few complaints from players.

As for William Hill, it has an enviable and unblemished reputation in business.

Recently Playtech has laid their 2008 year’s results open to the public. The company’s gross revenue (Playtech along with iPoker) has increased by 70%! It will be recalled that the 2007 year’s revenues increased even by 101%! After Playtech had left the US online gambling market it has been doing a really smashing job on other markets. Everybody knows Titan Poker, the biggest poker room of the iPoker Network, which follows hard on FullTit and PokerStars’ heels.

As you see, Will Hill’s moving from Cryptologic to Playtech is really the largest deal for the past few years.