Caesars Interactive CEO: "Sheldon Adelson is a financial bully"

Having led Caesars Interactive Entertainment to the very top of the social casino ladder, Mitch Garber is one of the few industry execs who can claim to have successfully straddled the social, real-money egaming and land-based casino worlds.

Now heavily involved in Caesars’ bricks-and-mortar business, as well as overseeing the hugely lucrative social casino arm, Garber remains frustrated by the slow roll-out of regulated egaming in the US. Despite being live in only New Jersey and Nevada, CIE is well-positioned to take advantage of any regulatory progress. But the Canadian is also aware of the threat posed by the likes of Sheldon Adelson, a man who wants online gaming banned entirely in the US.

Speaking to eGR last month, Garber talked openly about how CIE has had to adapt to open up new areas for growth, why despite maintaining a good relationship with platform partner 888 the firm may still develop its own gaming platform, and why letting PokerStars into the US would be good for the market.

Q: Your social casino business currently dwarfs your RMG arm. Do you see that balance shifting in the future?

A: The real-money gaming industry is really a long-term play. I have been in internet gaming in one way or another since 1997, so clearly I have patience for the long game. We have been fortunate that social mobile games came along and that the World Series of Poker has been a very successful business. I was hopeful that we would see a federal bill and we came close. But given that that now is an unlikely outcome then state-by-state is the next best thing.

What we have seen in the past couple of years is this business can be effectively run and regulated by authorities in New Jersey and Nevada, and therefore should be encouraging to New York, Pennsylvania and California. I am confident, but I don’t have great hope that it’s going to roll out very quickly, I think it will roll out over time. That said, I got into the gaming industry when I was in my twenties and now I’m in my fifties so I certainly don’t want to be interviewed by eGR when I’m turning 75 still talking about the state-by-state roll out of real-money gaming.

Q: How is your relationship with 888 working out? Any plans to develop or acquire your own real-money gaming platform?

A: I think the business is too small today for us to develop our own platform. But as far as the relationship with 888 is concerned, my career has in some part been defined by personal relationships and how good they have been. So my relationship with Gigi Levi [Former 888 CEO] and then Itai Frieberger [888 COO] has been and continues to be excellent, and the inter-company relationship equally is very strong.

I really like the guys, I really like the company, and they have done just about everything that we have asked them to do within reason and taking market size into account. And realising that it’s not a highly profitable area yet, it’s about doing everything you want to do, but balancing it with the fact it’s not a big enough market today.

Q: What are your thoughts on PokerStars entering the market? Do you think they will grow poker in New Jersey?

A: PokerStars has always proven to grow the market wherever they have been. It’s hard to criticise their ability to grow markets, as they have done a very good job of it. But I believe they did that job unfairly back in the time when they were facing the US. But this is a whole new PokerStars yet still with the same great engine and very smart poker people, so I think that they have an opportunity to grow the market, and if they can grow the market then we should benefit from their ability to do that. David Baazov is a very smart guy and I believe he will be very successful.

Q: Will Sheldon Adelson succeed in his quest to ban most forms of online gaming at a federal level in the US?

A: I think he is a financial bully who doesn’t use facts and who doesn’t understand the business, but has a view and is prepared to finance it. And unfortunately we are throwing good money after bad in order to fight him because he is very powerful from a financial perspective. At the same time, we have got over two years’ experience in Nevada and New Jersey, and there isn’t a single allegation of money laundering, fraud, sponsorship of terrorism, anything that Sheldon Adelson is spending a fortune to convince people would be the case if online gaming remains legalised in the US. The fact is, there is legalized online gaming in the US and those things don’t happen.