Microgaming Selected by Hippodrome Casino Online

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Over the last few years it has been accepted that land casinos will have to create online presence in order to sustain themselves. Hippodrome Casino, which just opened in London’s Leicester Square on July 13, is already on its way to create the strongest possible online presence. A statement from Hippodrome Casino earlier this week revealed that it has forged deals with Microgaming and PokerStars. PokerStars is the world’s largest online poker site and Microgaming is the leading online casino software provider with the largest portfolio of games. Simon Thomas, founder and chairman of the Hippodrome Casino, said that they were delighted to welcome PokerStars and Microgaming into the Hippodrome Casino family. He added, “They bring unrivalled online profile and expertise that will allow us to harness the true potential of a bricks-and-mortar venue and its online presence.”

The online poker site of Hippodrome Casino will obviously be powered by PokerStars. But PokerStars will also enhance the new casino’s live poker room offering. The poker room at Hippodrome Casino will be refurbished and rebranded as the United Kingdom’s first PokerStars poker room. In 2013, PokerStars will launch a new range of sponsored tournaments and special events at the Hippodrome and will promote these to its online customer base of 50 million registered players. PokerStars has also taken a minority stake holding in the Hippodrome Casino as part of the deal. Guy Templer, Group Strategy Director for PokerStars, said that the Hippodrome has dramatically raised the quality bar for the UK casino industry. He added that it was natural for the two of them to join hands. “Together we will give poker players the same great poker experience, live 24/7 in the heart of London that they get from PokerStars online.”

Microgaming will build the online casino for Hippodrome, which will be operated by the Betway Group. The Hippodrome online casino will offer the unrivalled Microgaming suite of games and mobile gaming applications. Roger Raatgever, Microgaming CEO, said that Microgaming was proud to have been selected as the exclusive provider of online gaming software to the iconic London brand Hippodrome. He pointed out that the convergence of offline and online gaming is a trend that Microgaming has been at the forefront of for some time now.

The choice of Microgaming by Hippodrome has been criticized in some quarters. The argument is that the Hippodrome Casino offers slot machines from IGT, Novo, Aristocrat and WMS at its brick and mortar location. These slot machines will not be available on Microgaming online platform. Therefore this will lead to a disjointed experience at the land casino and the online casino. The contrary view is that Hippodrome players will get a more complete experience with a different set of games at the land casino and the online casino.

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