Home / Poker News November 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – Mohegan Sun teams up with Ongame
The Poker Grapevine – Mohegan Sun teams up with Ongame
Posted by: Randy Williams - Wed, 2012-11-28 05:21
Despite the fact that experts see little chance of anything decisive transpiring on the issue of legal
online poker in the US any time soon, operators continue to jostle for position striking up various partnerships with online poker platform providers. The latest brick and mortar operator to sign such a partnership was the Mohegan Sun, which announced on Tuesday that it had selected the Ongame Network to provide an online poker platform for its free-to-play online poker operation which is set to be launched early next year. The move is clearly an attempt on the part of the land-based gambling operation to create some player liquidity ahead of internet poker regulation.
According to Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority CEO, Mitchell Etess, his side had been looking for a suitable online partner for 6 straight months, before the choice was made the other day. The partner that the Mohegan Sun needed was one that understood the intricacies involved with regulated poker markets, and one flexible enough to start out on a play-money platform, turning it into a real-money one at a later date.
Bwin.Party, the previous owner of the Ongame network has sold it to Amaya Gaming for €15 million. In case online poker gets legalized and regulated in the US in the next 5 years, Amaya will have to pay a further €10 million for the network. According to the Mohegan Sun management, the move that their side undertook was the first of its kind among casinos situated on the East Coast of the United States.
In other news: the current year hasn’t even wrapped up yet, but savvy poker tour operators are already looking to the future: the GUKPT has announced its schedule for 2013. The tour kicks off in February, in London and it wraps up in December, in the same location.
