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World Series of Poker Leaving the Rio?

It’s apparently hard to keep a home if you’re the world’s premier poker tournament event. The World Series of Poker may be moving – again – if Harrah’s follows through on plans to sell the Rio.

Rumors of a move for the WSOP have been floating for a few months now, but firm word on Harrah’s attempts to sell the Rio are just emerging this week. Business Week is reporting that the Rio is being shopped around for a price in the range of $500 million.

There’s no comment from Harrah’s yet; BW cites sources who are said to be parties interested in purchase.

The logic behind the sale: after acquiring Planet Hollywood, Harrah’s has a mega-resort that can rival the Rio in size and sparkle and has the added benefit of being on the Strip, as opposed to a mile or so off the Strip, as the Rio is.

While it’s pure speculation at this point, most expect that the WSOP will move to the Planet Hollywood casino if a sale takes place (and possibly even if it doesn’t). Among all of the Harrah’s properties in Vegas (Bally’s, Bill’s, Caesar’s, Flamingo, Harrah’s, the Imperial Palace, and Paris), only PH and Caesar’s have the capacity to host the WSOP.

Harrah’s probably figures that PH is not only likely to have more available capacity in the summer months than Caesar’s, but also that the WSOP will provide a nice PR push for their newer acquisition.

It wasn’t always like this for the WSOP. Prior to moving to the Rio in 2005, the WSOP enjoyed a long residency at Binon’s in downtown Las Vegas. As a nod to that heritage, Harrah’s actually ran the last two days of the 2005 Main Event at binion’s before shifting the entire tournament over to the Rio.

The 2010 WSOP will still be taking place at the Rio, obviously; follow all of our 2010 WSOP coverage here.

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