Harrah's and 888 Sign New Deal

Harrah's Interactive Entertainment and 888 sister company Dragonfish have signed a new deal that will supply support to Harrah's online casinos and poker sites, it was announced last week.

The deal will see 888's Business to Business division supply software for Harrah's operations in Britain, and open up an online presence for the WSOP and Caesars Casinos brands.

The deal could also have implications in the United States if current federal laws against online gambling are overturned.
888.com CEO Gigi Levy said: "It's an amazing deal if the US market opens up to online gaming one day and it's a good deal even if it's Europe only. We have more big American deals in the pipeline for the B2B unit."

Hearings on several bills set to overturn the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act are set to be heard in Washington in September.

Shares in 888 rose more than 16 percent on Friday, following the signing of the deal with Harrah's. Although exact financial details of the deal were not made public, Levy said the agreement was worth millions of dollars in the long term and would start having an impact on earnings from 2010.