Churchill Downs Acquires Bluff Media Ahead of Law Changes
- by Josef Rantamaki
With seeming changes in the offing to US legislation on online gaming, Kentucky based Churchill Downs, a racing operator listed on NASDAQ, has anticipated the changes in law and prepared itself for moving into the gaming market by snapping up Bluff Media, which is based in Atlanta.
Bluff Media prints the popular Bluff magazine and runs the online BluffMagazine.com. Starting as a twice-monthly magazine in 2004, Bluff magazine has proven popular and successful, while the group itself has successfully collaborated with the World Series of Poker and has challenged much larger poker publications such as CardPlayer.com.
Dealing mainly with issues concerning poker, Bluff Media uses printed and online material, while also operating websites such as BluffPoker.com and Bluff.com. Their site, Bluff’s PokerDB.com, tracks poker players online and ranks their tournament winnings and performance.
Based in Kentucky, Churchill Downs said it decided to acquire Bluff Media because it presently does not deal in online poker for real money, and that it would build on Bluff Media’s current business model and poker content.
No details on the deal are available at present but Churchill Downs said in a statement that the purchase of Bluff Media would give it “new business avenues to pursue in the event there is a liberalization of state or federal laws with respect to internet poker in the United States.”
Although no details have been published, it is known that the purchase of Bluff Media will include the full and total assets of the company. There will also be no changes to how the company is run at the top, with no alteration to the present operation of the group or its executives, which includes co-presidents Eric Morris and Eddy Kleid.