888 Shares Skyrocket
After Deal Struck with Harrahs
 September
14 - At then end of last week,
the share price of UK online gambling giant,
888 Holdings Plc,
skyrocketed
after the gaming firm
signed a deal with
the largest land gambling company in the United States,
Harrah's Entertainment Inc,
to provide it with a range of
state-of-the-art online gambling services.
On the day of the announcement,
888's shares rose by 12.2 pence to close at 97.5 pence on the
London Stock Exchange
(LSE). However, despite the increase, 888's share has fluctuated
little this year, which means
the company's current value on the stock market is estimated to
be 336.9 million pounds (R4.2 billion).
Although the precise financial details of the transaction
between the two firms remain a closely guarded secret, the
deal was reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars
and for good reason, considering that it could prove financially
very
symbiotic for both parties.
888 can celebrate the fact that it is now one step closer to
gaining a foothold in the lucrative American online gambling
market,
assuming that the internet pastime is legalized and regulated in
the not too distant future. Harrah's will also
benefit from being able to tap into lucrative online gambling
revenues for the first time.
Said 888 Holdings CEO, Gigi Levy by phone after the deal was
announced, 'We
are very excited about this multi-million dollar deal with
Harrah's
Entertainment which will see us provide them with comprehensive
online gambling services. This will
hopefully pave the way for a possible re-entry into the U.S.
online gaming market.'
In that vein,
Harrah's is currently lobbying U.S. Congress to allow licensed
gambling operators to accept online wagers from people based in
the U.S.
For this reason 888 recognised the opportunity to invest in
business-to-business services to
gain a quicker foothold in the U.S.
assuming, of course, that online gambling is eventually
legalized.
Continued Levy,
'It's going to be the big U.S. players that take advantage of
the situation.
The easy entry for us, being that all these companies require
infrastructure and services, is on the B2B side.'
888 owns and operates popular online casino,
Casino-on-Net
and popular online poker room,
Pacific Poker.
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