GGPoker Parent Company Buys World Series Of Poker Brand From Caesars
$500 million purchase includes $250 million in cash and $250 million due in five years
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The World Series of Poker brand — a name synonymous with tournament poker for more than a half-century — is changing hands.
Caesars Entertainment, which has owned the WSOP since 2004, when, known at the time as Harrah’s Entertainment, it purchased Binion’s Horseshoe and with it the WSOP, announced Thursday afternoon it had agreed to sell the intellectual property rights to NSUS Group Inc., the company behind international online poker site GGPoker.
NSUS (pronounced like “answers”) has agreed to pay $500 million to Caesars, split into a $250 million cash payment once the deal is closed, and another $250 million five years from that closing date.
The 2024 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas just concluded last week, played out for the second year at its new homes on the Strip, Paris Las Vegas and Horseshoe Las Vegas. As part of the agreement, Caesars will retain the right to host the annual tournament series at its Vegas properties for the next 20 years, and Caesars casinos will continue to have the opportunity to host WSOP Circuit events and feature WSOP branding in their poker rooms.
On the digital poker side, WSOP Online is currently available in Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and Caesars will continue to operate those sites — 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,” according to the press release.
‘An exciting future for WSOP’
This is not a brand-new relationship; the WSOP and GGPoker have previously partnered for overseas qualifiers for WSOP tournaments.
“After collaborating with Caesars Entertainment for years, NSUS Group, the operators of GGPoker, is thrilled to announce their new role in leading the World Series of Poker, the world’s most renowned poker brand,” said NSUS CEO Michael Kim in the release. “We will leverage GGPoker’s cutting-edge technology and industry expertise to create an exciting future for WSOP, ensuring players have an increasingly improved, safe, and seamless poker experience. Under the new leadership, NSUS intends to expand WSOP worldwide, positioning it at the forefront of poker’s growth.”
Eric Hession, president of Caesars Digital, added: “We’ve enjoyed a longstanding and successful partnership with GGPoker that has helped spur the growth of the WSOP brand.”
GGPoker, which calls itself “the world’s biggest poker room,” operates in numerous countries but is not regulated in any U.S. state. It counts among its ambassadors six-time WSOP bracelet winner Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu — who kept it low-key in his initial reaction to the news:
