A new strategic partnership between 888 and WMS Gaming has recently been announced. 888 has been making sure that they don’t leave all of their eggs in one basket when it comes to the US online poker market. 888 will provide the online poker software needed to run a poker network while WMS Gaming will look for brick and mortar casinos to join the network in the United States.
WMS Gaming is actually a company based in Illinois that manufactures some of the leading gaming machines. WMS Gaming has a lot of contacts in the US gaming space and they should be able to find partners to join the network. Initially the two partners will offer a play money platform only for brick and mortar casinos that want to start building their online presence.
Once Federal or State law is passed real money poker games will be allowed to be offered. WMS Gaming will be able to partner with licensed poker operators in states that have regulated online poker. So far only Nevada and Delaware have legalized online poker, but more states should be regulating online poker in the future.
This is a great partnership for both companies. It appears that most US states that regulate online poker will leave the door open to offering interstate poker games to ensure there is enough liquidity. Smaller brick and mortar casinos will able to join on the network and it will allow smaller players in the industry to operate with enough player liquidity.
888 Gaming also has a partnership with Caesars in the USA where Caesars will license 888’s poker platform. 888 is already the 4th bigger online poker room in the world and if they can corner the US market for when it’s ready to explode they should grow into one of the top 3 poker rooms without much of a problem at all.
WMS Gaming, 888 and Caesars have all applied for licenses to operate in Nevada already. None of the three companies have been approved yet in Nevada, but the NGC only started approving licenses recently, which we reported about. 888 Poker has one of the best poker platforms in the industry and it’s extremely secure. It should be interesting to see if 888 is a major player or not once the online poker industry starts to open up in the USA, but if they continue forming partnerships with leading companies they’ll be fine.
