CAN poker become as popular as stock-car racing and golf? Lakes Entertainment and WPT Enterprises are banking on it.
WPT Enterprises, which produces the World Poker Tour, filed for an initial public offering late last week. The company is seeking to raise anywhere from $20 million to $28 million in an offering underwritten by Feltl and Co., a Minneapolis-based investment bank.
WPT Enterprises is majority-owned by Lakes Entertainment, a publicly-traded yet speculative gaming company that develops, constructs and manages casinos. Lakes Entertainment doesn't actually do any of that - yet.
Lakes has contracts to develop and manage casinos for four Native American tribal organizations that are currently seeking to get casino projects off the ground. Local bureaucracies haven't approved any of the casinos yet, but this hasn't necessarily hurt Lakes. The stock is up more than 60 percent in 2004, and despite revenue of only $4.3 million in 2003, the company has an enterprise valuation of more than $255 million.
"Lakes Entertainment was kind of a middling, speculative company," Roger Gros, editor of Global Gaming Business, a gaming trade magazine, told The Post. "But with this poker thing, they're taking it to the next level."
Lakes' sole source of revenue last year was the World Poker Tour. Now the company, along with the new WPT Enterprises, has grand plans to turn a television show into an icon.
"Our objective for the World Poker Tour is to establish a premier brand that is similar to the brands created by popular professional sports leagues, such as the NASCAR and the Professional Golfers Association," WPT Enterprises writes in its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Representatives from Lakes Entertainment, WPT Enterprises and Feltl and Co. did not return calls seeking comment.
WPT Enterprises' fate rests partly in the hands of the Travel Channel, which holds options for the show for the next five seasons. The second season of the "World Poker Tour" TV show began airing last month - and for now, at least, it appears that the bulk of WPT's revenue stems from its TV presence.
According to the company's SEC filing, the Travel Channel will pay the company approximately $8.2 million in license fees in 2004 for the show's second season; another $600,000 will be derived from fees that casinos pay WPT to be featured on the program.
Additional revenue could come through syndication, licensing opportunities and sponsorships. WPT Enterprises has retained worldwide distribution rights, and the company is also pursuing licensing opportunities for the brand, including board games, casino games, video games, scratch-off lottery tickets, books, apparel and poker accessories - with those last two beginning production during the second quarter of 2004.
Though poker's popularity seems to be increasing every day, the WPT Enterprises IPO is the first time that the game will test the public markets.
Lakes Entertainment is still a speculative-stage company - and is essentially spinning off its only revenue-bearing asset. And although there are grand plans for the World Poker Tour brand, Wall Street will ultimately have to decide whether the company holds a full house or is merely bluffing.
http://www.nypost.com/business/22888.htm
WPT Enterprises, which produces the World Poker Tour, filed for an initial public offering late last week. The company is seeking to raise anywhere from $20 million to $28 million in an offering underwritten by Feltl and Co., a Minneapolis-based investment bank.
WPT Enterprises is majority-owned by Lakes Entertainment, a publicly-traded yet speculative gaming company that develops, constructs and manages casinos. Lakes Entertainment doesn't actually do any of that - yet.
Lakes has contracts to develop and manage casinos for four Native American tribal organizations that are currently seeking to get casino projects off the ground. Local bureaucracies haven't approved any of the casinos yet, but this hasn't necessarily hurt Lakes. The stock is up more than 60 percent in 2004, and despite revenue of only $4.3 million in 2003, the company has an enterprise valuation of more than $255 million.
"Lakes Entertainment was kind of a middling, speculative company," Roger Gros, editor of Global Gaming Business, a gaming trade magazine, told The Post. "But with this poker thing, they're taking it to the next level."
Lakes' sole source of revenue last year was the World Poker Tour. Now the company, along with the new WPT Enterprises, has grand plans to turn a television show into an icon.
"Our objective for the World Poker Tour is to establish a premier brand that is similar to the brands created by popular professional sports leagues, such as the NASCAR and the Professional Golfers Association," WPT Enterprises writes in its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Representatives from Lakes Entertainment, WPT Enterprises and Feltl and Co. did not return calls seeking comment.
WPT Enterprises' fate rests partly in the hands of the Travel Channel, which holds options for the show for the next five seasons. The second season of the "World Poker Tour" TV show began airing last month - and for now, at least, it appears that the bulk of WPT's revenue stems from its TV presence.
According to the company's SEC filing, the Travel Channel will pay the company approximately $8.2 million in license fees in 2004 for the show's second season; another $600,000 will be derived from fees that casinos pay WPT to be featured on the program.
Additional revenue could come through syndication, licensing opportunities and sponsorships. WPT Enterprises has retained worldwide distribution rights, and the company is also pursuing licensing opportunities for the brand, including board games, casino games, video games, scratch-off lottery tickets, books, apparel and poker accessories - with those last two beginning production during the second quarter of 2004.
Though poker's popularity seems to be increasing every day, the WPT Enterprises IPO is the first time that the game will test the public markets.
Lakes Entertainment is still a speculative-stage company - and is essentially spinning off its only revenue-bearing asset. And although there are grand plans for the World Poker Tour brand, Wall Street will ultimately have to decide whether the company holds a full house or is merely bluffing.
http://www.nypost.com/business/22888.htm
Agree that the poker craze is sweeping the nation, but there are two problems with this.
1) the shows are heavily edited and delayed, misleading many into what actually goes into winning these tournaments.
2) people can't bet on these tournaments like football, basketball, and then watch them on TV for instant gratification.
(sure Pinny and others will put up lines on the WPT and the WSOP, but how many people are going to be and then wait three months to watch it on TV?)
1) the shows are heavily edited and delayed, misleading many into what actually goes into winning these tournaments.
2) people can't bet on these tournaments like football, basketball, and then watch them on TV for instant gratification.
(sure Pinny and others will put up lines on the WPT and the WSOP, but how many people are going to be and then wait three months to watch it on TV?)
