The Weather Lottery (TWL) has announced that they are in the acquisition process of online poker business Devilfish Poker for an amount of £330,000. The conditional agreement is part of the strategy of the company to create an additional casino gaming division to complement their existing lottery offerings.

Under the terms of the agreement, TWL will pay £40,000 in cash and the outstanding amount of £290,000 will be completed by the issuance of up to 30,000,000 ordinary shares of TWL, bringing total compensation up to £330,000. Devilfish Gaming announced last month that they have agreed to sell its online gambling company after months of uncertainty about the future of the company. The casino gaming company was founded by professional poker player David “Devilfish” Ulliott and was listed on the London PLUS stock exchange in 2008 with a market value of £3.2 million. Despite the strong brand name of the Internet casino business, the company suffered a number of problems, including problems with the casino gambling license of the business which caused they could no longer advertise in the UK, a major player in the online casino market.

TWL can add the acquisition to the existing development of its FCBetz.com sports betting brand and its Weather Lottery and the new FC Lotto brand. Lord Razzall, CEO of TWL said, “Devil Fish Poker (DFP) has an established brand name in a sector which is complimentary to the existing gambling operations of TWL. We have a growing database of users in both FCBetz.com and FC Lotto some of whom will we believe wish to take advantage of the DFP products. The Board considers its acquisition at a time when there is still considerable untapped potential for development fits in with our gaming strategy.” TWL said the acquisition of Devilfish Poker enables the company to take advantage of what they think is an undeveloped potential brand, and they can focus specifically on active Devilfish poker players but also thousands of inactive accounts. TWL added that they can benefit from the cross-selling of FCBetz.com and Devilfish Poker products.