Big Money Vs Big Players, Who Wins?
Added: Jan. 13, 2014
It is too soon to tell of course, but the battle, no let’s call it a war now to bring online casinos to the average American citizen has gotten a lot more heated lately. As you already know, the push for online casinos in the United States has been a tale of hits and misses.
On one hand there is the ill-fated Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) passed by Congress back in 2006. Not long after, the United States Justice Department backed down from its previous position that all forms of online gambling were illegal. That retreat by the Justice Department allowed some progressive states that supported online gambling to go ahead and allow online gambling sites.
With dollar signs dancing over their heads, legislators from Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware approved online gambling in a remarkably short time. Perhaps spotting the same revenue opportunities there has been a recent rush into the online gambling from so-called Big Money.
Just recently a Who’s Who list of billionaires started putting their money on the line to support online gambling. Starting with the mega hedge fund success stories like George Soros, John Paulson and Leon Cooperman these big money players have discreetly bought their way into a majority ownership of Caesars Acquisition Company that has ownership in Caesars online gambling operations.
Not ones to be left watching the gameplay from the sidelines, the billionaire private equity managers Leon Black, David Bonderman, Marc Rowan along with Joshua Harris upped the ante by putting in $484 million into Caesars online gambling operations.
But it doesn’t end there. There is already an impressive list of billionaire investors such as Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta (infamous for the wildly successful Ultimate Fighting Championship) along with Kirk Kerkorian are putting big money into online gambling.
Yet, on the other side of the table as it were, another big player with big money says the equivalent of: No Way, Not in my back yard you don’t. You have to know the name Sheldon Adelson. Mr. Adelson is the 5th richest man in the entire United States and he is famous for the size and generosity of his political donations.
Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands, recently valued at a whopping $60 billion property is worth more than all the other U.S. casinos combined. In other words, Sheldon Adelson has a lot of money to throw around and has stated publicly that he will spend any amount of money to stop online gambling.