Has Caesars Finally Saved Itself With The Sale of Playtika?

Caesars Entertainment Corporation just sold Playtika Ltd., a section of Caesars Interactive Entertainment to a consortium of Chinese equity funds for $4.4 billion. Did Caesars just save itself? For the first time since it officially split into two and dumped all of its bad debt in a garbage shell in a financial sleight of hand, the answer is a definite maybe. That’s a big improvement over absolutely not, so maybe we’re finally getting somewhere.

Before we go into the details of what just happened, let’s just point out one unsavory aspect of any potential agreement between junior bondholders and Caesars. That is, it won’t be based on any natural notion of actual justice. If Caesars is to be saved, it will be saved by screwing over 49.9% of its junior creditors. In order for the United States “justice” system to preserve the company’s existence, Caesars has to secure agreement from 50.1% of junior creditors. So far, they have 37%, so they’re close. The total owed is $5.2 billion and Caesars is contributing $4 billion in a mix of cash, new debt, and equity. With the sale of Playtika, that number can now go higher, but don’t trust Caesars to pay off every penny even if they can. That would be the honorable thing to do. What they will instead do is keep whatever money they can and only pay off as much as is required to get that 50.1% so they can keep treading water.

What would real justice be, rather than public State justice codified by politicians under the influence of financial lobbyists? It would be to pay off 100% of all money owed to anyone holding any debt that is due, and if any single person cannot be paid off, any existing capital should be immediately liquidated to pay it. This is in effect what Caesars has done, partially, by selling Playtika. Paying off only 50.1% is essentially a 50% bailout by the government to Caesars. There is no difference between that and that TARP 2008 bailout of banks or any other bailout.

Now about Playtika, once again Israel is popping up as a gaming powerhouse. Playtika is a mobile gaming app company that uses virtual currency and in-app purchases to make money, much like King Digital Entertainment or Zynga, or Nintendo’s Pokemon Go. The main difference between Playtika and Pokemon Go is that Playtika players are not induced to walk into graveyards or off cliffs to their deaths while playing the game. This is a good thing. (For decades since the 1980’s, game developers have been trying to figure out how to combine exercise with gaming, and suddenly they have gone too far in one giant leap…off a cliff.)