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Posts Tagged ‘online gambling’
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
According to PartTimePoker.com, who has been following this story closely from the outset, Harry Reid’s online poker bill has seen some minor, but important, changes over the past couple days. Here is a look at the changes that PartTimePoker has discovered in the new version of the bill (which PTP is calling Reid 3.0):
· New: California card rooms have won inclusion into “Limitation of Eligible Licensees”| Old: They weren’t on that list.
· New: No licenses can be issued until all of the grunt work is done at the Fed level | Old: States could start issuing licenses 15 months after bill’s passage
· New: The “bad actor” penalty is down to 1.5 years | Old: Was 3 years.
· New: Licensing fee is 16% of revenue | Old: 20%
· New: States offering intrastate gambling online can now opt-out | Old: States offering online gambling unable to opt out
· Blackout period: unchanged
· Definition of who is eligible for a license has changed dramatically
Furthermore, the bill’s chances of being attached to the tax-cut bill are now extremely unlikely, which makes the only option for Reid and the bill’s proponents to attach it to the federal budget which has still yet to be passed.
As the clock continues to wind down the chances for passage of online poker legislation seem to be shrinking by the day.
Tags: 15 Months, 3 Years, Bad Actor, Blackout Period, Clock, Couple Days, Federal Budget, Gambling Online, Grunt Work, Harry Reid, Inclusion, Licensing Fee, Minor Changes, New California, online gambling, online poker, Outset, Poker Legislation, Proponents, Tax Cut
Posted in Online Poker, Poker News | No Comments »
Thursday, September 30th, 2010
PokerStars will no longer be servicing the Washington State online poker market. PokerStars announced earlier today that the online poker site will no longer provide real money poker games to residents of Washington State.
This is a humongous blow to the online poker market in the United States. Up until now the poker site went ahead and offered real money online gambling to Washington Residents, and paid affilaites for traffic brought to them from Washington. That’s all changed now.
Before it was believed that the government in the United States could not legally and constitutionally regulate the use of the Internet to play poker, and that the government at the very least could not discriminate against online poker providers in favor of local land based operations.
What changed? The Washington Supreme Court ruled in favor the states ban on online gambling in favor of the censorship of their residents activities. Washingtonians, it’s time to watch porn and rated R movies, before someone says it’s immoral and you no longer have the option. In fact, have a cigarette, drink some caffeine, and hit on a Milf while you have some of your freedom.
When you’re done with all that. Either find a new way to accomodate Washington gamblers, or remove marketing for that state.
Tags: Censorship, Cigarette, Freedom, Gamblers, Internet Poker, Marketing, Milf, Money Games, Money Online, Money Poker, online gambling, online poker, Play Poker, Poker Games, PokerStars, Real Money, Supreme Court Ruling, Traffic, United States, Washington Residents, Washington State, Washington Supreme Court
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Link building is the gambling affiliate’s worst nightmare. Who wants to study up on building links, then put in all the time and effort to do it, not knowing whether it’s really going to help your page or not? Well we’ve got some good news for you. It doesn’t have to be so hard, and if you go about building links the right way, it can be a great success.
The biggest problem with building links for online gambling affiliate sites is that it is such a massive and competitive market. Another big problem is that too many affiliates think you have to get only the highest quality links; those with a Google Page Rank (PR) of at least 3 or 4. These are great, yes, but you can’t expect to get too many of them in this business, and all of those low quality links still count for something.
We’ve compiled a list of the best and/or easiest ways to build links for your online gambling affiliate site. Use what you will and good luck!
Best Ways to Build Links to Rakeback Affiliate Sites : Buying good PR Links
Yes, you can actually buy a link on a site with high Google PR. It’s frowned upon by Google, but for some reason, Google tends to penalize the seller of the links more so than the buyer. Plus, Google will only penalize if caught, so if you buy links from a smart seller, you won’t have too much to worry about anyway.
Best Ways to Build Links: Article Submissions
These are like links directories except that instead of submitting a link, you submit a full article with linked text. It makes more use of keywords and is more likely to be read and clicked through, plus it gets your link out there for Google to read.
Best Ways to Build Links: Link Directories
Link directories have been around since the dawn of the internet, and most of them are all but worthless. There are a good number of niche-based link directories that can give you valuable links though. The ones that are marketing your genre only and have been around for several years are the best ones to go with.
Best Ways to Build Links: YouTube
Let’s face it; people love YouTube because they can get information without actually reading. It’s like watching the news on TV versus reading the newspaper. Links on YouTube via videos carry a lot of value.
Best Ways to Build Links: Blog Links
You can post blog comments with links, but they have very low value, mostly because 99% of them are spam. However, they are easy to get out there and when combined with good link building techniques can add to the value of your link building campaign. Blog networks are another good way to build links. You can get a free blog network through WordPress and other programs that allow you to write articles with links in the text. Just be careful that your articles are of good content quality and not more spam that will just hurt your Google ranking.
Parallel Web Sites
Create a miniature version of your online gambling affiliate site that parallels the original. Do NOT make a mirror site. Duplicate content hurts! Do NOT make it a spam site. Spam hurts even worse! Just a few good content pages that link back to your main site will do.
Create Strong Rakeback Affiliate Links Via Link wheels
Link wheels are a little more complicated to exlopain, but a new trend when it comes backlink building. Picture this. First you sign up for a wordpress hosted site at wordpress.com. Then you sign up for a site a blogger. You build two great mini sites on those domains. Then you sign up for another site, this time at Live Journal, again you build another mini site. Do this on about 10 strong WEb 2.0 social sites.
Now link the WordPress site to the blogger, then the blogger to the live journal, all the to the tenth site.. the tenth site links to the wordpress site. There’s a little circle here see..
Then link every one of these sites to your main site, creating a mini network. We’ll delve even deaper into Link wheel creation in future articles.
Tags: Affiliate Sites, Affiliate Website, Article Submissions, Competitive Market, Dawn, Gambling Site, Gambling Sites, Genre, Good Luck, Google, Google Page Rank, Highest Quality, Link Directories, Low Quality, Marketing, Niche, online gambling, Problem Gambling, Smart Seller, Worst Nightmare
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Thursday, August 5th, 2010
Last week it was Party Gaming discussing mergers with BWIN, two major players in the online gambling industry. This week, it’s 888 who’s reportedly looking at merger possibilities. According to Reuters, 888 has been fielding inquiries since the deal between Party and Bwin.
According to 888 CEO, Gigi Levy, the company is one of the biggest assets in the industry. The company hasn’t announced any intentions to merge with any other major contenders in the industry, but just the fact that they’ve announced recent inquiries is enough to turn some heads.
After the PartyGaming/Bwin merger proposal leaked to the press, Levy says “…we got a few phone calls immediately from various people. Everybody in the industry is looking and saying ‘who is the best one to merge with if we need to?’”
The nature of a merger deal is uncertain at this time due mostly to the duration of such a process. “Party and bwin took almost a year to close the deal,” Levy said, “so we don’t see anything happening imminently, but there’s definitely expressions of interest.”
888’s numbers didn’t compute too positively this July as summer weather and the World Cup are both being blamed in part, distracting a lot of 888’s customers. Shares were down 1.5% and the idea of safety in merged numbers is looking more and more enticing to a lot of online gambling companies who see the potential of $4 billion net worth – the estimated value of PartyGaming and Bwin post-merger – as a life preserver in an ever fluctuating industry.
“The pressure is now on for others to pursue consolidation or risk being left further behind,” said Nick Bartram, analyst for KBC Peel Hunt. “For 888 consolidation looks imperative and, given the bottom line performance, the group could be pursuing this from a sole position of weakness.”
888 announced earlier this week that the company earned $61 million in its second quarter across all gambling venues – poker, casino and bingo. That matches last year’s second quarter results However, poker trading is way and down it’s only the offset of growth in bingo and other new markets that are making up the slack.
888 warned shareholders in May that its year-end earnings were looking to be much lower than previous expectations, and that prediction is being realized as July revealed a 6% daily average decrease in revenue compared to previous quarter results. At its current stance, shares in 888 have dropped more than half their value compared to the start of 2010.
Along with the prospect of a projected merger, 888 has made an attempt to increase growth through partnership with Microgame to supply Italian markets with online casino products.
Tags: 888, Bartram, Bottom Line Performance, Bwin, Contenders, Expressions Of Interest, Gigi, Imminently, Kbc Peel Hunt, Levy, Life Preserver, merger, Merger Deal, Merger Proposal, Mergers, Net Worth, online gambling, Party Gaming, partygaming, Poker Casino, Post Merger, Reuters, Summer Weather
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
As the online betting market in France has been liberalized many online poker sites are moving into the area. Two large poker rooms recently announced they are now offering services in France. Everest Poker and BetClic Poker are the most recent rooms to be licensed in the area.
Both BetClic Poker and Everest Poker are owned by Mangas Gaming and GigaMedia, and the owners decided to move into France. GigaMedia is a large part of the online gambling industry as they provide online entertainment software, services, development of software as well as licensing. The site also operates online gaming businesses.
GigaMedia CEO Arthur Wang commented: “We are especially excited about the opening of the large French market to online poker. Everest and BetClic are strongest in France and we see an enormous market opportunity for which we are best positioned with our award winning poker products.”
This announcement came just after the first site launched in France. The first site to get started in the country was Bwin. As the area has opened up more and more providers are moving into the area and the coming weeks should see even more news of online poker rooms and gambling operators becoming licensed and starting operations in France.
Tags: Arthur Wang, Betclic, Ceo, Enormous Market, Everest Poker, france, French Market, Gigamedia, Launch, Mangas, Market Opportunity, Moving, Offering Services, Online Betting, online gambling, Online Poker Rooms, Online Poker Sites, Poker Gambling, Poker Online, Software Services, Winning Poker
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
 Two of the largest online gambling companies have been in talks of merging for some time now. Party Gaming and Bwin Interactive were in talks to merge their two companies but now the talks have reportedly come to an end.
There has been speculation about the two talking of merging for many months now and now it has been confirmed that the talks have ceased. Hannes Androsch the supervisory board chairman of Bwin has confirmed that the talks have fallen through.
Androsch commented in Austria’s Trend magazine: “In the end, talks have not led to the desired outcome.” Many analysts predicted that if the two companies had been able to merge it would have set off a large wave of consolidation in the industry.
Austria’s Trend magazine also stated that they think Bwin will now look to partner with a company in the United States. The magazine stated that the company is considering the purchase of a small stake of around 11 percent of an unidentified company located in San Francisco.
This speculation was somewhat confirmed as Norbet Teufelberger the co chief executive of Bwin commented in the magazine that the company would like to enter the United States with a local partner that is competent. He also commented that Bwin is in talks to do just that.
Tags: Board Chairman, Bwin, Bwin Interactive, Chief Executive, Consolidation, Desired Outcome, Merger Discussions, Norbet, online gambling, partygaming, San Francisco, Speculation, Stake, Supervisory Board, Trend, Trend Magazine, Unidentified Company, United States
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
 For year’s online video sharing site, YouTube has refused to offer advertising to online gambling operators and casinos. However, now the site believes that they can offer the advertisements safely on their site. YouTube will be using their age checking software to keep children from viewing the gambling advertisements.
YouTube will now be publishing’s ads in the UK that are related to online gambling. One online gaming site has already been successful in purchasing advertisement space. Ladbrokes has become the first company to create gaming ads on YouTube.
Online casinos and gambling operators who are licensed in France, the UK, Spain and Italy are allowed to purchase advertisement space on YouTube. YouTube will be using special age checking software, the same that is used on the mature themed videos, to keep kids from viewing the gambling advertisements.
The software keeps kids under the age of eighteen from viewing any videos or advertisements that aren’t suitable for their age groups. Representatives from YouTube have stated that the software has been successful in blocking children under the age of eighteen from accessing the blocked areas.
Gambling companies and casino operators who decide to purchase advertising space can run campaigns on the home page of YouTube. The advertisements will also be able to run on video pages as well as create their own channels on YouTube.
Tags: Advertisement Space, Advertisements, Advertising Online, Age Groups, Campaigns, Casino Operators, Gambling Casino, Gambling Casinos, Gambling Online, gambling operators, Gambling Software, Italy, Ladbrokes, Mature, Online Casinos, online gambling, Online Gaming, Spain, Video Sharing, Videos, Youtube
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
 Gambling in Australia is big business. Players have been fans of slot machines for years and now poker has become the new game to play. There are many poker pros coming out of Australia and they are helping to spread the game in the country. Now many residents of the state are going online to wager their cash in poker games. And even though players are enjoying online gambling, officials of the country are not so keen on the idea.
Government officials are starting to question how online gambling will affect the country and they may be creating a similar ban such as the United States UIGEA ban. This past Wednesday the Australian government announced they do not support the liberalization of online gambling. This announcement was made despite the Productivity Commission giving a positive recommendation for online gambling.
The Australian government will be looking at regulatory approaches that other countries have used which includes the United States. The government will then decide if online gambling will be good for the Australian government to profit and be able to regulate.
Australia is just another country in a long list of countries and areas in the world that are considering the option of not allowing online gambling in their area. Although people around the world would love to have the option to enjoy online gambling, governments are overriding what their residents would like and creating bans against online gambling.
Tags: Australia, Australian Government, Business Players, Government Officials, Governments, Liberalization, List Of Countries, New Game, online gambling, poker, Poker Games, Poker Pros, Productivity Commission, Regulatory Approaches, Slot Machines, UIGEA, United States
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Friday, June 11th, 2010
 Bodog is one of the largest online gambling brands in the world today and they recently announced they have created a new position at their company. There is a CEO position for Bodog Europe and the new job goes to Patrik Selin.
Selin is a welcome addition to the Bodog family as he has great experience in the online gambling industry. Selin was part of one of the largest deals ever in the industry. Selin was working with Ongame as a Chief Executive when he sold Ongame to Bwin Interactive for 5 million Euros.
Selin commented on Bodog by stating: “Bodog Europe has a remarkable product set, a tremendous brand, and has assembled a team that is second to none. The meteoric successes in the UK to date have surpassed all expectations, and I’m thrilled to be able to help steer the course going forward in the UK. We are already looking to other European markets as the regulatory environment clarifies and as we secure appropriate regional licenses.”
Selin is a strong force in the industry. He worked a deal with Bodog to license the brand in 2009 and he is working to launch a new poker network for Bodog. Selin commented that the European market is very crowded but Bodog will stand out in the market and that is what will help them do well in the market.
Tags: 5 Million, Bodog, Bodog Brand, Ceo Position, Chief Executive, Europe, European Markets, Euros, Launch, New Job, New Position, Ongame, online gambling, Patrik Selin, Poker Network, Regulatory Environment, Remarkable Product, Second To None, Strong Force, Successes, Welcome Addition, World Today
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
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