None of this should come as a shock … after all, we saw this summer that Team WSOP employees were all wearing name tags that clearly identified them as worker-bees for HIE, Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment, the year-old parent company formed around online poker capo Mitch Garber. Also, we noticed that the wristbands identifying live tournament players clearly were pushing WSOP.COM … it wasn’t just because that’s where they wanted players to go for chip counts!

Anyhow, latest development on that progression … with their 888 partners Dragonfish, Harrah’s is set to launch a new suite of products that includes more real-money offerings for their (fully legal) UK customers and expanded play money options for (someday soon to be legal) Americans and others worldwide.

Read more about it all here.

Not a big deal at all, I’m sure … just a little report about a new company coming to Canada — Harrah’s. The new CEO of Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment, Mitch Garber, will be setting up shop in his old hometown of Montreal … which, of course, is kinda like a suburb of the Kahnawake (Online Poker) Nation.

Furthermore, it seems to be less and less of a secret that the WSOP, which retakes control of its own website later this year and not too long ago successfully fought a court battle for control of WSOP.com, has plans to take its brand of poker tables online.

From the Montreal Gazette:

Harrah’s agreed that he could manage the World Series of Poker teams already in Las Vegas and England out of a Montreal office and still focus on growing the 40-year-old Vegas-based competition.

“There is a hunger for World Series of Poker events, like PGA golf, with events taking place everywhere, whether it is Moscow, Montreal, Rome. Our intent is to deal with government and licensing authorities in every jurisdiction to grow the World Series of Poker,” he said yesterday.

Garber already has a Montreal office in the core of the city and about 10 people, mostly business-development types, working there. Should all go according to plan, the office will expand to “hundreds” of people, mostly customer-service employees and a scattering of Web designers.

The business plan has two main goals, said Garber, who has invested “substantially” in the privately held Harrah’s.

The first is “to offer online gaming in the U.K. and potentially elsewhere in Europe where it is legal and government-licensed.”

Why has the well respected online casino, Intertops, parted company with the worlds largest online gaming software provider, Microgaming? Find out why, and see what Harrah’s Entertainment and the National Football League are up to!

The former CEO of Party Gaming is on board with the WSOP to be sure … as CEO of the newly formed Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment. Jeffrey Pollack stays on board as WSOP Commish and President of the new parent company. All of this effective today, supposedly.

The official word:

HARRAH’S ENTERTAINMENT FORMS HARRAH’S INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT
NEW SUBSIDIARY TO MANAGE THE GLOBAL GROWTH OF THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER® (WSOP)
AND EXPLORE EUROPEAN INTERACTIVE EXPANSION STRATEGY

LAS VEGAS, May 29, 2009 – Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. (Harrah’s) announced today that it has established a new subsidiary, Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment, Inc. (HIE) to manage the global growth of the World Series of Poker® (WSOP) and explore a European interactive strategy.

“As the world’s largest gaming company, Harrah’s is taking a proactive approach toward international and interactive expansion,” said Harrah’s Entertainment Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Loveman. “It is important we position ourselves to explore new markets as well as new technologies with our best in class brands.”

Mitch Garber, a longtime gaming lawyer and public company senior executive, joins HIE as CEO. Jeffrey Pollack, Commissioner of the WSOP, remains in that role and will become President of HIE.

In addition to growing the World Series of Poker, HIE will explore the use of interactive gaming technologies to expand the reach of Harrah’s brands globally, starting in Europe. With its renowned Total Rewards customer-loyalty program, HIE will be utilized to develop new opportunities to strengthen and grow Harrah’s customer base.

The World Series of Poker, in its 40th year, has experienced record growth in the last five years. Participants from 124 nations competed in last year’s tournament, up from 24 just five years ago and entrants have gone from 13,036 to 58,720 during the same span. The WSOP expanded into Europe in 2007 with the creation of the World Series of Poker Europe® held each fall in London.

Yikes, is it really May 29 already?