Online gaming giants, 888 holdings, have spent a massive £60 million on an online bingo site which was founded less than two years ago. Wink bingo owners Daub Ltd will be paid £59.7million for the business which also includes brands Posh Bingo and Bingo Fabulous.

This deal follows takeovers from rivals PartyGaming of Foxy bingo and Think bingo back in July for more than £100million.

The online bingo industry seems to be growing at speed and is proving to be attractive to online gaming firms such as 888 and PartyGaming who are increasingly searching for new alliances.

Wink bingo launched in 2008 and now boasts more than 60,000 active players making it one of the most popular online bingo sites in the UK. Wink bingo made £15million in revenue with £1.3million in profit during the first 11 months of this year.

888 is to pay £11miilion upfront with the rest being performance related in the year to end of March 2011 with the potential to reach a price of £59.7 million.

Gigi Levy, chief executive of 888, said: “We are delighted to announce the Wink Bingo acquisition as an expansion of our online bingo footprint in the lucrative UK market. The Wink team has a proven track record of excellence and will be a great addition to our growing bingo business.”

He also said trading at 888 “remains strong and is in line with management’s expectations”.