Caesars to launch real-money online poker in Nevada this week
World Series of Poker to go live on Thursday 19 September while delays to New Jersey launch date possible
Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE) will launch its long-awaited World Series of Poker (WSOP) real-money poker site in Nevada on Thursday.
The site will become the second real-money site to launch in the state and will be powered by 888, who has acted as software provider for WSOP’s real-money online gaming site in the UK since 2009.
“This is really the beginning of a domino effect,” Mitch Garber, chief executive officer of CIE, said on a media conference call.
“The same way that the state of Nevada started land-based casino gaming and you’ve seen the proliferation of casino gaming across the US. We believe that the digital age will repeat that very same pattern.”
A marketing campaign is due to kick-off which will see the online service advertised on television, billboards and on room keys at its Nevada hotels. In addition, Caesars signed-up 12,000 prospective players at the recent WSOP tournament in Las Vegas.
Online gambling was legalised by the Nevada authorities in February and WSOP’s launch follows that of Fertilla Interactive-owned Ultimate Poker, which launched in April.
Additional real-money online poker sites are expected to go live in the coming months including 888Poker which will launch under Las Vegas operator Teasure Island’s licence and funded by the All American Poker Network that recently signed a sponsorship deal with Global Gaming.
Online gambling is projected to be a $7.4bn business in the US by 2017, according to researcher H2 Gaming Capital, with Nevada projected to contribute around $400m of that total.
Some analysts feel intrastate liquidity sharing is integral to the chances of the state’s online success with the soon-to-be regulated state of New Jersey lined up as potential partnering state.
However, Garber said liquidity pooling wasn’t essential. “Nevada will have a very healthy business on its own,” he told reporters.
The announcement of the launch coincided with plans to raise as much as $1.18 billion by selling stock in Caesars Acquisition, an entity that will own a stake in the online gambling business, as well as casinos in Las Vegas and Baltimore.
Meanwhile, Ceasars chairman and CEO Gary Loveman said he hoped online operations will be up and running in New Jersey later this year.
However, the original go-live date of 23 November could be in doubt after a recent letter from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, which was sent out to all of the casino operators, noted a large number of incomplete applications and a long list of requirements which still needed to be met.