Caesar Entertainment is trying to go public (for the 3rd time, 2 previous times were unsuccessful this dog being saddled with so much debt), you can watch the presentation where they detail, among other aspects of the business, their strategy for online poker/online gaming and prospect for regulation, starting around minute 30, there : http://www.retailroadshow.com/roadshows.asp

If you want to watch, this will be available online only until Tuesday morning, it will be taken down once the deal happens (scheduled for Tuesday).

Cliffs? I hate watching videos for news.

Hi Gary Loveman, welcome to 2+2!

Can't jump forward you gotta listen to it start to finish. But he talks a ton about online gaming and seems to be using that as a key selling point.

'We believe the next big growth opportunity comes online and we think 2012 will be a seminal year in that regard'

They want to sell pieces of themselves.

If we buy them we will be rich.

Ay standard.

They estimate Party will have 20% of the market and they will have 'significantly more' of the market, based on 'exploiting' the WSOP.

They also think they are going to make tons of money in social games because they bought some Israeli company that has the 6th biggest app on the iphone.

extremely peculiar that they are selling such a small piece of the company in the IPO... never heard of an $18M IPO piece from a $20B company...

Serisouly. If you can't make money running a casino you might be George Bush.

The main problem with this company is that it was saddled with so much debt when the Harrah's LBO (leveraged buy-out) happened (one of the worts LBO of all time), it has been tip toeing on the verge of bankruptcy for years, there is still a high probability they will end up there unless there main markets recover very strongly and/or the online business explodes.
Casino operations are making money but interest expenses on that huge pile of debt are so high that it's eating all of the earnings and more.

Unlike Las Vegas Sands and Wynn they have minimal exposure to Macau where all the growth is.
That's why they are pumping the online business so hard even though at this stage it's a very very minimal part of their operation, it's their only chance at growth.

They are going for a very small IPO this time around because they had to withdraw much bigger deals the last two times for lack of demand.

Basically buying this stock is like buying an option (ie a worthless piece of paper) on a huge recovery in the traditional gaming markets and the legalization of online gaming, if both of those things happens you would be rewarded handsomely, if not this is worth 0 (zero!)