Caesars Interactive Entertainment, a subsidiary of the world’s largest gaming company, has acquired the rights and ownership of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) mobile application, according to a press release issued by the company this week.
According to Caesars, buying the WSOP mobile app enables it to “expand its presence in free-to-play social and mobile gaming.” The poker app is being developed by a group of 19 Canada-based game developers. The company’s Playtika division will operate the mobile venture as a free-to-play social game.
Credit: WSOP
The WSOP application is available on the Facebook platform, Amazon Kindle, Android, and all IOS devices. The WSOP game launched in 2012 and has since been downloaded more than 6 million times.
The WSOP series of poker tournaments began in June in Las Vegas and will continue through early July. The main event will have a buy-in of $10,000 and nearly 7,000 players are expected to participate in a prize pool that could approach $20 million.
“The catalyst for the deal was the acquisition of certain World Series of Poker game assets and intellectual property from Electronic Arts,” the company announced. Under terms of the deal, Electronic Arts transferred global rights and ownership of its WSOP game for mobile devices and Facebook.
Caesars continues to lobby lawmakers to legalize online poker in the United States. However, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (Dem., Nevada) believes that passage of such legislation is highly unlikely. Earlier this month, Reid said “I felt for several months now that I don’t see any movement on this. I don’t see anything happening.”
There has been much discussion by players in forums about the potential legalization of online poker two years after the U.S. Justice Department shut down sites such as PokerStars and Full Tilt. But at least with this congress, the era of online poker, at least in the U.S., appears to be over.
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