Harrahs Buys 51 percent of

Posted on 5/19/11

Interesting social games developer acquisition

US resorts and casino operator Harrah's Casinos, a unit of Caesars Entertainment Corporation, has acquired an initial 51 percent stake in Playtika, an Israeli social games developer for a consideration of $85 million.

Playtika is a one-year-old Israeli company founded by Robert Antokol and Uri Shahak comprising 15 employees in Israel and 30 employees at its development facility in Ukraine.

Co-founder Shahak, Playtika’s COO previously served as a senior games manager at 888 Holdings PLC and is reported to have attracted numerous investors from the online gaming industry which include former 888 CEO Gigi Levy and 888 investor Ofer Lezovsky amongst others.

The company has developed a number of games on social networking site Facebook and its Russian counterpart Vkontakte including Slotomania video slots and the dice game Farkle with the addition of another two games imminent.

Playtika claims a following of 9 million users worldwide of which it says 1.5 million are Facebook users.

The Israeli online gaming start-up is reported to “have not yet proven its worth” with unidentified sources quoted by globes.co.il saying that “the company's monthly turnover is around $100 000 and it has yet to generate a positive cash flow from operations”.

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