The Ongame poker network, one of the oldest and largest in existence, could be on the market in the near future. Current owners bwin are on the verge of announcing a merger with fellow gambling giant PartyGaming, who have their own popular poker network, PartyPoker.

According to player traffic website, Poker Scout, the Ongame network currently sits 7th overall. Although, as one of the best euro poker sites, if you add in the figures for their separate Italian and French networks, they’d likely be bumped up a place or two. PartyPoker just edges them out in 4th place, having been steadily on the rise for the last few years.

After rumours broke of a potential sale, bwin were quick to confirm that they were considering potential suitors for Ongame. “There will be surplus assets once platforms are unified,” said a bwin spokesman. The company are hopeful that a buyer can be found but added that, “partnerships are also thinkable.”

It’s almost unheard of for such a major poker network to be, part and parcel, up for sale like this. No one has stepped forward to declare an interest as of yet and it will be interesting to see if a newcomer or old hand decide to take the plunge on the bwin poker download.

Not that we should be expecting a fire-sale. “We haven’t yet established any firm deadline,” said the spokesman, citing the unclear regulatory landscape in the US as a motive for delaying the sale. Bwin bought the Ongame network for €500 million in 2005, just a year before the UIGEA hit. With the potential for a legal online poker business in the US on the horizon, bwin are keen to wait, in the hope that an open market would drive up the price of their network. Of course, potential purchasers will be desperate to get in before the UIGEA is repealed.

Following the news, shares in bwin rose 1.9 percent.