Harrah’s Boss Optimistic About US Poker Legislation
Written by Roger S | Thursday, April 29th, 2010
In an interview to Reuters, the Chief Executive Officer of Harrah’s Entertainment, Gary Loveman, said that he believes that if and when the United States government legalizes online poker, his company stands to make literally millions of dollars in revenue.
Loveman spoke ahead of the release of Harrah’s first quarter report, which saw the group’s revenues fall 3% to $2.19 billion.
Loveman spoke of the group’s plans for the next few years and said that he was optimistic about the chance of poker and gambling reforms on a state to a state basis in the United States. He said that he saw the group expanding in states such as Massachusetts, Maryland and Ohio thanks to the new poker laws in these regions.
He also said that Harrah’s was keeping a close eye on the bills that have been floating in the US House and Senate to have online poker legalized.
In the interview, the CEO said that, in his opinion, the legalization of online poker had a relatively good chance of success as it would boost the states’ tax revenues, create employment and regulate an industry that many are interested in seeing brought under control.
If and when the United States legalized online poker “we would enjoy a substantial portion of that,” said Loveman.
Harrah’s owns the World Series of Poker brand and operates the annual tournament.
On the home front, Harrah’s would consider selling any of its assets that it deemed unprofitable and not central to operations. However Loveman would not elaborate on which properties he meant. “They would be in markets where we have multiple positions… typically those that generate weaker performance,” he said.
Harrah’s continues to keep show interest in the Asian market, such as Macau in China, although there are no definite plans to expand into the region just yet.
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· Written by Roger S · Filed Under Poker News · Comments Off
