March 11 (Reuters) – Billionaire Tilman Fertitta has been in exclusive talks to buy Caesars Entertainment for roughly $7 billion after he topped a competing offer from Carl Icahn’s firm, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Fertitta’s company, Fertitta Entertainment, has been discussing paying around $34 a share for the gaming company, the report said.
The casino operator had also received an all-cash offer of around $33 a share from Icahn Enterprises, the publicly traded company that houses Carl Icahn’s investments, the WSJ report said, adding that the offer had not been officially rejected by Caesars.
Caesars Entertainment declined to comment on the report, while Tilman Fertitta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Fertitta’s per-share offer represents about a 17% upside to Caesars’ Wednesday closing share price of $29.07.
An announcement between the two sides is not imminent, and it is possible the talks won’t result in any deal, the report added.
The casino operator has reported a net loss for four consecutive quarters, hurt by softening visitor numbers in Las Vegas — which fell significantly in 2025.
Tilman Fertitta, the billionaire owner of the Golden Nugget Casino chain and basketball team Houston Rockets, had approached Caesars in 2018 about merging it with his own gaming empire.
In 2019, Caesars replaced three of its board members after the activist investor and billionaire Carl Icahn built a 9.78% stake in the company and pressured to sell the company as a whole.
Icahn later disclosed a “sizable” stake in the company, following which Caesars expanded its board to add two new members.
Caesar’s shares closed up 11.76% on Wednesday, giving it a market capitalization of $5.78 billion, according to LSEG-compiled data.
(Reporting by Parth Chandna; Editing by Alan Barona)
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