Caesars Interactive share sale; Winamax US free-play; Dragonplay raises $14m

winamax-dragonplay-caesars-interactiveCaesars Entertainment has sold an undisclosed percentage of its online gaming division, Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE), to Rock Gaming, with whom Caesars is developing two Ohio casino projects. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Caesars stated that Rock Gaming had agreed to buy 12,300 CIE shares for $60.8m, with an option for Rock to acquire an additional 3,140 shares for $19.2m by Nov. 15. Caesars’ SEC filing didn’t provide a reason for the sale. The filing also doesn’t specify what percentage of Caesars Interactive’s total shares the sale represents, but Gambling Compliance‘s Chris Krafcik heard unconfirmed reports that the figure was 1.5%. For the record, that would value Caesars Interactive somewhere around $4b. To quote Krafcik: “How on earth is that possible?”

French market-leading online poker operator Winamax (last seen being blacklisted in Belgium) has announced the imminent launch of a US-facing free-play poker site. A companion Facebook poker application will make its debut later this week. CEO Canel Frichet explained to eGamingReview that the poker site is designed to establish a market toehold while the company searches for an American joint venture partner on a real-money site. In an offhand swipe against her home territory’s cantankerous attitude towards online gaming operators, Frichet said the “fiscal and regulatory structure is so complex in France that we feel that we would know how to navigate any American model, either interstate or federal.”

Israeli social/mobile gaming startup Dragonplay has embarked on a successful first round of funding. The Tel Aviv-based company – perhaps best known for its Live Holdem Poker Pro game, which has 2m monthly active players – collected $14m from Accel Parnters, Entrée Capital and Founder Collective. Venture Beat reported that Dragonplay intends to focus on casino and card games (it recently introduced its Live Blackjack free-play app) with an eye toward further monetizing that sector when US authorities finally let social gamers bet real money.

Of course, there’s no shortage of social game companies out there thinking the exact same thing. But many aren’t aware of how rich they’ll need to make their lawyers before that magic day arrives. The Recorder recently queried a bunch of legal eagles, including Behnam Dayanim, who has (among other roles) helped facilitate recent negotiations between US authorities, Full Tilt Poker and Groupe Bernard Tapie. As Dayanim points out, this is all uncharted territory. “We haven’t seen a situation anywhere where a social gaming company has moved into the gambling space. I can’t think of any company that has done it.”

“If all you needed to do was tweak your technology to allow online gambling, that would be simple. What’s really complicated and requires a lot of effort is getting a license.” The easier route is to partner with an existing casino license holder, but social game execs should still expect a hefty degree of poking, prodding and rubber-gloved fingers up their back passages. “Some states have even attached devices to key executives’ personal computers to monitor email. It can be very intrusive, in many respects more intrusive than a government security clearance. For someone who has never undergone the process, it could be disturbing.” And unlike their online games, not free to play.