This story is sponsored by WSOP
The owner of the WSOP.com, Caesars Casino and Caesars Bingo online brands has sold part of its interactive division to US land-based casino group Rock Gaming for an initial US$60.8m.
US casino giant Caesars Entertainment, which also owns the Harrrah’s and World Series of Poker (WSOP) gaming brands, released details of the sale of an undisclosed percentage of stock in Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE) in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. CIE is based in Canada and headed up by former PartyGaming chief Mitch Garber (pictured).
Rock Gaming, Caesars’ joint venture partner in two Ohio casinos, has agreed to pay US$60.8m in cash by 12 July for 12,310,162 shares in Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE), with an option to purchase a further 3,140,3474 shares for US$19.2m by 15 November.
Rock Gaming said in a statement: “We believe that an investment in CIE is a natural next step to align our interests and talents with Caesars.”
Caesars Interactive Entertainment in January signed an agreement with 888’s Dragonfish B2B arm to provide a WSOP-branded poker platform in a regulated US market. Dragonfish also provides the software for Caesars’s UK-facing WSOP.com poker website, with Sun Bingo operator Gamesys powering the Caesars Bingo and Caesars Casino offerings. Caesars also completed its purchase of social games developer Playtika last December for US$220m. Playtika owns the Slotomania Facebook game which boasts 6.8 million monthly users.
CIE also has online/offline deals for its World Series of Poker brand in France with land-based casino operator Barriere and in Italy with leading online poker network Microgame. Caesars’ interactive arm also operates a French-facing site WSOP.fr under a joint venture with the former, which also saw the French land-based casino operator became the headline sponsor and host of the World Series of Poker Europe event.
Caesars assumed ownership of the World Series of Poker brand back in 2004, when it negotiated the purchase of the financially troubled Binions Horseshoe Casino in Nevada.
Caesars’ UK poker website WSOP.com runs on 888′s award-winning poker software. To find out more, simply visit WSOP.com.
