PlayUp Sold, Sheldon Adelson Rolls Over in His Grave as Sands Casino Expected to Go Online

Submitted by Aaron Goldstein on

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Aaron Goldstein

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For the better part of a decade, Las Vegas Sands has worked with the likes of South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to try and eradicate attempts at legalizing online casinos in the US. 

But with the casino company's billionaire head having passed away, there's been a change of consideration.

Sheldon Adelson lived an amazing life to be sure and he never backed down from his attempt to prevent Web casinos.  He also never looked to get into the industry he condemned either, this despite the newfound interest in mobile sports gambling.

Back in November we learned that Las Vegas Sands would be ending its decade long attempts to quash the activity.

In May, it was being reported that new CEO Rob Goldstein had visions of entering the online casino market.

"Yes, we've looked at digital and it's interesting," Goldstein said at the time. "Right now we are exploring opportunities."

Pierre Lindh of iGaming Next was first to make the announcement via his LinkedIN page that Sands Corp may be closer to entering that space.

The biggest gambling operation in the world finnally pulls the trigger and enters the world of online gambling! iGaming NEXT can reveal that Las Vegas Sands Corp. launches Live Casino!

Then there's PlayUp! 

Play Who?

The once ballyhooed horse racing platform that got into some hot water with Ohio regulators before settling in April by agreeing not to operate there (nice settlement) is now about to be sold to a publicly traded company.

PlayUp US To Be Bought, Pared Down By Listed Company is the headline appearing on Legal Sports Report this week.

PlayUp, a company that somehow managed to make Bet America look like they knew what they were doing, is said to be "going through a significant restructuring and will only bring up to seven employees to the new company," according to Matthew Waters of LSR.

PlayUp, which is based in Australia, is only live in Colorado and New Jersey, with both regulators aware of the impending transaction, he reports.

Typically this type of news is released AFTER the transaction is finalized, but we'll play along.

This is not a knock on Australia, we were huge fans of CanBet back in the day, but does anybody notice a trend here (a la PointsBet)?

PlayUp will retain only seven US employees as part of the upcoming deal, it is being reported. They are also expected to exit the Colorado market.

The acquisition was scheduled to occur on June 30, but some delays pushed it back to the end of July, PlayColorado.com is reporting.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com

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