Harrah’s Snags Former PartyGaming Head

In a rarity for a Sunday, gambling news sites lit up with discussion this afternoon following a London Times report that land-based gambling giant Harrah’s has hired former PartyGaming executive Mitch Garber.

Garber’s specific role is still unconfirmed, but early reports have him heading up a new division of Harrah’s that will focus on the internet-facing operations of the company along with operations related to the World Series of Poker. The move will no doubt set off the irony meters of readers who remember that Garber’s former company, Party Poker, was a title sponsor of the World Series of Poker before the UIGEA forced them to exit the US market.

While the move is certainly a sign that more and more momentum is gathering behind the movement to legalize and regulate online gambling in the United States, one shouldn’t read too much into Harrah’s hiring of Garber. The company has been fairly bullish on regulation for quite some time now and is likely simply hedging their bets - especially since Harrah’s would have such an immediate foothold in the US online poker market due to their ownership of the wildly popular World Series of Poker brand.

This news is the second major PartyGaming-related story to break in the last week, coming hot on the heels of the company’s 100 million plus settlement with the US Department of Justice.