Some time ago it was announced that Harrah’s Entertainment established a new subsidiary that is called Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment or HIE. The subsidiary’s goal is to manage the world growth of the World Series of Poker and also to explore an interactive strategy in Europe.

Gary Loveman, Chairman, President and CEO at Harrah’s Entertainment, said “Harrah’s, as the world’s largest gaming company, is taking a proactive approach towards international and interactive expansion.”

Loveman also added that it was important that they positioned themselves to explore new markets and new technologies with their best in class brands.

Mitch Garber, public company senior executive and a gaming lawyer, has become CEO at HIE. Commissioner of the WSOP, Jeffrey Pollack keeps his position and becomes President at HIE.

In addition to growing the WSOP, HIE is going to explore the interactive gaming technologies use in order to expand the Harrah’s reach worldwide, and they are starting from Europe.

Using its well-known Total Rewards customer-loyalty program, Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment will develop new opportunities to increase and strengthen Harrah’s customer base.

For the last five years the World Series of Poker has been experiencing record growth in. This year the WSOP celebrates its 40th anniversary. Players from 124 countries took part in the 2008 tournament, five years ago there were only 24 and the number of participants has grown from 13,036 to 58,720. In 2007 the WSOP started to be run in Europe with the creation of the World Series of Poker Europe that is held every autumn in London.