- Executives from Caesars Interactive Entertainment will present an overview of the product, announce its plans—and a launch date.
- “More than 15 years in the making for the company, and 43 years after the World Series of Poker was first held, the WSOP brand will make its United States online real money poker debut soon.”
- Nevada-licensed WSOP.com will launch using 888poker’s software.
WSOP and Caesars are to hold a conference call with invited media Monday for a preview of its real-money online poker debut in Nevada.
Executives from Caesars Interactive Entertainment, including CEO Mitch Garber, Executive Director Ty Stewart, newly appointed Head of Poker Billl Rini, and VP Seth Palansky, will present an overview of the product and announce their plans for the market.
An official real-money launch date will also be revealed.
“More than 15 years in the making for the company, and 43 years after the World Series of Poker was first held, the WSOP brand will make its United States online real money poker debut soon,” reads the advisory notice sent Friday. A question and answer session will be held following the presentation.
WSOP will become the second regulated online poker room in the United States. Ultimate Poker has enjoyed over five months alone in the Nevada online poker market, now on its second generation client and having implemented its VIP program.
Nevada-licensed WSOP.com will launch using 888poker's software, much like its UK-focused WSOP.co.uk, licensed in Gibraltar.
Its launch has been a long time coming. Caesars was granted a license back in December last year, and its partnership with 888 was approved in March.
WSOP.com launched a play money test site a month later and, on the day of the first event of the World Series, the WSOP.com software was made available to download on the site. Only play-money was available, but all signs pointed to an imminent launch of real-money poker.
Unfortunately, things did not go to plan. A mistake on the website allowed players to download the Mac client, which did not have the real-money capabilities disabled; a few players were able to deposit and play for real-money before the software was pulled.
Whether for this reason or another, WSOP did not launch during the summer, and today’s release has been the first real news from CIE since.
The first tournament event will be the WSOP.com Online Championships, which gets underway on October 25. To celebrate, it will kick off with a $100K freeroll, open to anyone who verifies their account by the end of September and deposits by October 15—which it presciently calls “within 30 days after we launch.”
Pokerfuse will naturally have all the details come monday.
