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Harrah’s Applies For Suitability Approval For Partnership With Online Gaming Company

Posted on April 21st, 2010

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The Nevada Gaming Commission last week has received application from Harrah’s Entertainment asking for suitability approval for its business collaboration with a Gibraltar-based online gaming company that provides the software for Harrah’s three Internet gambling sites in the United Kingdom.

The casino operator’s application is contained in a provision in Nevada’s Foreign Gaming Act involving gaming company’s connections with foreign entities. The same law was applied in a 2007 ruling by the state gaming regulators that declared Hong Kong entrepreneur Pansy Ho to be a suitable business partner for MGM Mirage in the MGM Grand Macau venture.

The application was filed by Harrah’s last week for its partner, Dragonfish. The online gaming company, a division of 888 Holdings, provides software services for Harrah’s that include poker and casino management tools, a system for online payments, customer service and others that would facilitate Harrah’s operation of its three gambling Web sites in the United Kingdom that were launched earlier this year.

Harrah’s Interactive, a division of the company that’s based in Montreal and which manages the World Series of Poker and Caesars brands in the UK is the involved partner. American gamblers cannot log on to these Web sites.

Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Dennis Neilander said this is the first time for the board to handle such a case. He said the state has never been asked before to see to a suitability approval of an online gaming company that accepted online wagers from Americans before the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006 which prohibits banks and credit card companies to handle transactions for online betting. “It’s a question the board and the (Nevada Gaming) Commission have never formally ruled on,” Neilander said. “It’s something that may need to be resolved because it’s possible we’ll see more of these types of relationships in the future.”

Before the enforcement of the law, 888 Holdings as well as other companies had offered American gamblers legal opinions supporting online wagering. Neilander said the state is still in the process of investigating 888 Holdings.Harrah’s is backing Congressman Barney Frank’s proposed legislation that would legalize, regulate and tax online gambling in the U.S.

It has been reported by the American Gaming Association that American residents have wagered around $5.9 billion with online gambling companies based overseas in 2008 and gamblers all over the world have spent $21 billion on Internet gambling.