Harrah’s expanding into European online gaming

News has reached us from across the pond that Harrah’s the iconic Las Vegas Casino chain and world’s leading gaming company, has established Harrah's Interactive Entertainment Inc which is hoped will allow the company to expand into the European interactive gaming world which is expected to include Internet casinos. Harrah’s also own the famous Horsehoe and Caesars Palace brands as well as the World Series of Poker. It is felt in the industry that Harrah’s have made the decision to get involved in internet casinos and online gaming as a stepping stone to be ready to enter the much larger US market should the current restrictive online gaming and internet casinos laws in the States be revoked.

A company statement by Gary W. Loveman the chairman, president and chief executive of Harrah’s Entertainment said "As the world's largest gaming company, Harrah's is taking a proactive approach toward international and interactive expansion," and "It is important we position ourselves to explore new markets as well as new technologies with our best in class brands". The newly established Harrah's Interactive Entertainment Inc will be headed by ex-PartGaming CEO Mitch Garber.

Of course the cynics amongst us might see that Harrah’s have seen the success of online gaming and internet casinos in Europe and how it has also helped some brick and mortar gaming companies keep their heads above water in tough economic times. Therefore this could possibly be a strategic plan to reduce the amount of long term debt that the parent company has, which if details published in various articles are correct stands at $24.2 billion.

Harrah’s have a long history of gaming from the inception of the brand 70 years ago in Reno which have them well placed to enter the internet casinos and online gaming market. They have developed their land based market to include casinos in four continents and are estimated as having over 85,000 staff. The long established World Series of Poker is doing extremely well and has seen massive growth in the entrant numbers from 13.036 five years ago to 58,720 more recently and this has also been expanded into the European market with the launch in 2007 of the WSOP Europe torunaments.