, Columnist
Alibaba's Play Is No Gamble
By joining a consortium to buy Playtika, the Alibaba chief is moving in on Tencent's territory.
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A Chinese consortium's buyout of Playtika, the online gaming unit of Caesars Entertainment, looks at first blush to be a move into the world of internet gambling. It's not.
In fact the group, which includes Alibaba chief Jack Ma's Yunfeng Capital, is paying $4.4 billion to get into the more pedestrian business of social games. Don't be fooled by the name Caesars and the catalog of gambling-type titles such as Slotomania, Bingo Blitz and Caesars Casino. Players can't get cash back out -- a limitation the buyers say won't change after the acquisition1470014462903 -- so Playtika looks more like Zynga than Paddy Power.