Caesars Interactive sells to Alibaba Group consortium for over $4 billion

Jack Ma, billionaire and chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Caesars Entertainment have sold their profit making online gaming business Playtika and all its subsidiaries for an estimated $4.4 billion to a Chinese consortium which is led by Giant Investment Ltd a private equity firm belonging to Alibaba Group Holding’s.

The consortium of 11 investors will pay in the region of $4.4 billion for 100% of Caesars Interactive business  but will not control the WSOP Brand and other real money online business. Playtika which has annual sales of $766 million last year is one of the few businesses that Caesars saw revenue and profit rises from in recent years.

Giant Investments by buying Caesars Interactive businesses have shown that Asia is now seriously looking at online gaming and observers believe this could be the first of many such major acquisitions in 2016 into the interactive market in the US and Internationally.

Rumours continue to mount that Caesars Entertainment will look to sell the remaining parts of Caesars Interactive as the parent company says it wants to focus on its core land based business.