Harrahs Closes Brit Online Gambling Venture
Published: Friday, March 04, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
HARRAHS CLOSES THE DOOR ON BRIT ONLINE GAMBLING VENTURE
$9.3 million loss
last year
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.
