CAESARS CEO OPTIMISTIC ON ONLINE POKER LEGALISATION
Friday August 26,2011 : Providing that Congress gets into gear, legalization could be possible this year
Gary Loveman, CEO of the Las Vegas-based gambling giant Caesars Entertainment, has again pushed the online poker agenda forward in a televised public interview.
Appearing on Fox Business News Wednesday, Loveman was asked about the potential for online poker being legalised in the United States, and offered a bullish opinion that, provided Congress can provide the necessary functionality to get legalization through, it could even be achieved this year.
Loveman said that there was significant potential in a business sense if his company was allowed to offer federally legal internet poker, for which there was clearly considerable demand in the United States.
Loveman has been a consistent and high profile supporter of (federally) legalised online poker in the United States.
Caesars is currently making headlines with its ambitious plans to expand its land gambling interests in Las Vegas, too, announcing a $550 million outdoor entertainment, shopping, and dining district near the Las Vegas Strip, with ground breaking set for September 2011.
The development, called The Linq, will be built behind the Imperial Palace and Flamingo hotels, with its equivalent of the London Eye and the Singapore Flyer – the Las Vegas High Roller – planned as the world's highest observation wheel.
Caesars will also completely refurbish, re-theme, and rename the Imperial Palace when the lease on the brand expires next year, and O'Sheas Casino will be demolished and incorporated into the new Imperial Palace.
The High Roller observation wheel is schduled to open in late 2013. It will have around 30 spherical cabins that each hold up to 40 passengers for the wheel's 30-minute revolution.
Other Linq plans include an open-air marketplace with 30 to 40 storefronts, about 70 percent of which will be restaurants and bars, targeted on the youthful market with the emphasis on entertainment.
Caesars has beaten another project to the punch with its Las Vegas High Roller wheel; Nevada investor Howard Bulloch announced in May this year that he planned to construct a 500-foot-tall Ferris wheel on the Strip's south end.
