互联网将成为博彩业的下一片新天地(4)

　　Last week Donald Trump publicly threw his hat in the ring, saying “we have been looking at this for a while.” What makes Trump’s entry into online gambling even more interesting is that his effort includes Marc Lasry, the billionaire hedge fund manager who controls Avenue Capital Group, which manages $12 billion. The two make a bit of an odd couple, given Trump’s recent alignment with the Republican Party and Lasry’s staunch support of Democratic Party causes, including the reelection of President Barack Obama. But Avenue Capital controls Trump Entertainment Resorts, which will own 10% of the joint venture Lasry and Trump are planning if online gambling regulation comes into effect. “This has to happen because many other countries are doing it and like usual the U.S. is just missing out,” Trump said.

　　Still, billionaire joint ventures for online gambling don’t always work out as planned. Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn announced a deal in April that he had struck with PokerStars, but had to backtrack and terminate the partnership days later when PokerStars got caught up in the Justice Department’s crackdown on online poker firms operating U.S. facing web sites. Wynn has not publicly disclosed any new plans for the Internet, but he has said that he supports online poker regulation. “We are convinced that the lack of regulation of Internet gaming within the U.S. must change,” Wynn said earlier this year.

　　Indeed, billionaires who were burned by the Justice Department’s indictment of some of the key executives behind PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have not been scared away from online gambling. Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, billionaire brothers who own Station Casinos, ripped up their partnership agreement with Full Tilt following the government crackdown on Full Tilt. But Fertitta Interactive, a company the brothers co-founded in 2010, is still going strong and just purchased CyberArts, an Oakland, Calif., outfit that produces online gambling software. “Fertitta Interactive fully supports the federal regulation of online poker in the United States,” Lorenzo Fertitta said in a statement in October.

　　It is not just the casino titans who are looking at Internet gambling as a potential goldmine. As Lasry’s move into this game shows, Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe are also paying close attention. In 2008 private equity firm Apollo Global Management, run by billionaires Leon Black, Joshua Harris and Marc Rowan, joined with TPG, the buyout shop run by billionaire David Bonderman, to purchase Harrah’s Entertainment in a massive $30 billion leveraged buyout. The deal has so far not been a good one, but Black and Bonderman are still trying to make it work. The company, now called Caesars Entertainment, has been investing heavily in its online operations and backing a new Washington D.C. lobbying effort that includes former FBI Director Louis Freeh. If online gambling in the U.S. opens for business, it would certainly help Black and Bonderman, two investing legends, get out of a tough spot.