The online gambling division of US brick-and-mortar casino operator Caesars Entertainment has burnished its offering by inking a casino content deal with Canada’s Amaya Gaming Group. The deal calls for Amaya to provide the New Jersey-facing operation of Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE) with its Amaya Game Office online gaming platform and third-party casino gaming content for both web and mobile. The deal will allow Amaya an unspecified cut of the overall revenue generated by CaesarsCasino.com in New Jersey as well as a cut of the specific revenue generated by Amaya-supplied content.
Amaya CEO David Baazov called the deal an “immense win” for his company, “significantly” extending Amaya’s US online gambling footprint while boosting recurring revenue in the coming years. CIE CEO Mitch Garber – who, like Baazov, makes his headquarters in Montreal – said Amaya’s turnkey solution would allow CIE to “tailor our product offering and integrate seamlessly with third party content.” CIE has partnered with 888 Holdings on its Nevada-licensed WSOP.com online poker site, and 888 will power the poker product of CIE’s New Jersey operations if/when the market opens as planned on Nov. 26.
888 recently announced a deal to provide the digital arm of brick-and-mortar casino operator Wynn Resorts with an online gambling product via the All American Poker Network (AAPN). But despite sharing a technical backbone, there will be no online poker liquidity sharing between Wynn Interactive and CIE in Nevada, New Jersey or anywhere else. By all accounts, CIE is working feverishly on adapting French company Barriere Digital’s online poker software to suit CIE’s needs, with the idea of eventually transferring over all CIE’s US-facing poker operations and thereby freeing itself of its dependency on 888.
Last week’s launch of CIE’s WSOP.com was significant in historical terms, offering a glimpse of how the addition of a second Nevada-licensed online poker site would impact Ultimate Poker, which had enjoyed a Nevada monopoly since its late-April launch. PokerScout data suggested the WSOP.com launch failed to match Ultimate Poker’s Day 1 numbers, which doesn’t bode well for future entrants, including 888’s tie-up with casino operators Treasure Island and Golden Gaming, as well as other potential AAPN partners. Seriously, those interstate compacts can’t come quick enough for Nevada-licensed operators.
