Caesars Entertainment has announced it will sell its World Series of Poker brand to NSUS Group Inc., whomever that might be.
The sale is valued at a hefty $500 million, including $250 million in cash and a $250 million promissory note due five years after the transaction’s closing date.
As a part of the deal, Caesars gets to host the WSOPs live tournament series at Horseshoe and Paris for the next 20 years, at least. The “S” stands for “sold.” The official announcement of the deal says, “NSUS Group Inc. is a leading investment group in the iGaming space known for successfully launching several groundbreaking ventures, including the innovative online poker room, GGPoker.”
While iGaming isn’t legal in most of America, that’s likely to change in the next few years.
NSUS (pronounced “answers,” no, really ) Group, we hear, plans to focus on making the most of the WSOP brand internationally.
Basically, it’s a big gamble. Caesars earns in the neighborhood of $20-25 million a year from the WSOP tournament directly, mostly for broadcast rights. That means NSUS paid the equivalent of 22 years of WSOP profit, all at once.
Caesars Entertainment has wrangled a deal that gives them a big influx of cash without giving up anything for decades. Its brick-and-mortar poker rooms will continue to feature WSOP branding.
Caesars destinations will also have preferential rights to host live WSOP Circuit events going forward.
There were additional words we sort of just skimmed over, “Caesars Digital will also receive a license from NSUS to continue operating its recently upgraded WSOP Online real-money poker business in Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania for the foreseeable future but will otherwise be restricted from operating online peer-to-peer real-money poker operations for a specified period of time and subject to certain exceptions.”A Caesars official said they’ll use the WSOP sale windfall to pay down some debt ($12.4 billion as of June 30, 2024) and probably buy back some stock, along with giving Cleopatra a fresh coat of paint before bringing her back at a more accessible height at Caesars Palace. (It’s possible we just made up that last part.)In case […]
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