Online Casinos Set Sights for the NBA

One of the oldest online casinos, operating online since the mid-90s, has recently made a serious bid to enter the NBA by attempting to purchase the Cleveland Cavaliers. Online Casino Fortune has made it pretty clear that they intend to outbid other potential buyers in order to acquire the NBA team. The online casino made an estimated offer thought to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $375 million.

Last week, Gordon Gund, who bought the Cavs in 1983 for $20 million, said he was in serious negotiations with a potential buyer. Spokesman Kevin Mercuri said the casino company has proposed meeting with Gund and team executives. This seems to be a continuing trend for online casinos that wish to step out of the virtual and into the material world by acquiring properties, land based casinos and now sports teams.


Back in April, Casino Fortune, consider to be one of the oldest and largest online casinos announced that it wished to buy out the Phoenix Suns for $380 Million. The deal didn´t go through in the end and the online casino sat on the sidelines waiting for its next move. Casino Fortune also made an offer to buy into the Trump casino fortune which apparently hadn´t turned a profit since 1996 Casino Fortune offered a $400 million investment for Trump's three ailing Atlantic City casinos -a sum that represents a 31 percent stake in the company. Casino Fortune President Dennis Rose said at the time: "We feel we can help Trump turn around his (money-losing) casinos and want to be involved in the management," he said. This represented a new stage in the gambling industry where online casinos were looking to buy out land based casinos.

Now Fortune Casino has set its sights on the NBA´s Cleveland Cavaliers. “We have made it clear that we want this team,” said Casino Fortune president Rose. The internet casino operator has confirmed it is willing to outbid another interested party to gain control of the team that has recently won nine straight matches. Although Casino Fortune is located offshore, the majority of their casino players are living in the US so therefore the online casino´s leadership decided the time is right to further invest in American leisure and entertainment –i.e. the NBA. The privately-held online casino boasts over 2 million customers.

Whether Casino Fortune will win the bid for the NBA´s Cavaliers is yet to be determined but one thing seems sure –they are out for a fight and are willing to go the distance in order to acquire the basketball team. This indicates the profitability and the huge amount of business that is being generated by online casinos.