PokerTek: PokerTek deal more than a year in the making

The board of PokerTek Inc. shopped the company around to more than a dozen potential buyers over the last three years before finding a buyer this spring with the proposed $12.6 million sale to Multimedia Games Inc. And the deal announced a few weeks ago took more than a year to negotiate. The Matthews-based manufacturer of electronic gaming tables for poker, blackjack and other casino games was spurred to sell by years of operating losses, the need to raise more capital for expansion and a lack…