Harrahs closes it's U.K. online casino
March 6, 2005
Vegas gambling giant Harrah's Entertainment Inc. has reportedly
halted operations at its UK Lucky Me.com online gambling site following
losses of $9.3 million last year.
Introduced in November 2003 for British bettors the site was first
suspended in October, Harrah's revealed in its annual report to
shareholders this week. Spokesman David Strow said that the virtual
doors of Lucky Me had been closed because it was losing money.
Lucky Me allowed players to access a wide range of games through
a monthly subscription. Gamblers paid from about $17 to $84 per
month for access to bingo and other games with cash prizes ranging
from $8.50 to $1.7 million. The site featured a sophisticated identification
process that prohibited bets from U.S. residents as well as from
other countries where Internet gambling is prohibited.
Developed in partnership with Revahertz Networks, a Boston-based,
privately-held software game developer that founded Gamesville,
a games-for-prizes site that was sold to the Internet search engine
Lycos in 1999, Harrah's had high hopes for the site.
The closure comes after Harrah's announcement in January that it
would dissolve a partnership with Gala Group Ltd., to build casinos
in Britain after the UK Parliament significantly restricted the
number of casinos that can be built under the new gambling bill,
which is now expected to allow only eight Las Vegas-style resort
casinos. Going into the Gala deal, Harrah's and other U.S. operators
were optimistic that more casinos would be permitted. But concerns
about problem gambling and a proliferation of neighborhood casinos
led to a more restrictive gambling bill than had been anticipated.
Strow said the gambling bill and legislative concerns didn't factor
into the decision to abandon Lucky Me.
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