Poker Business News From Europe

UK Poker Market in Decline, Says Research
Market research firm Mintel has published a report claiming online poker in the UK would decline by seven percent in 2009 with gross gaming yield falling to £247 million from £265 million in 2008.

The report says the online poker market in the UK grew 74 percent between 2004 and 2007 but that almost one-third of players have changed their playing habits as a direct response to the recession with average spend down almost 20 percent from £345 in 2007 to £281 in 2009.

The research also found that:
• Approximately half of players play once a week or more
• Approximately one-third of players play online poker once a week or more
• Approximately one-third of online players play more than one table at a time
• Live poker has suffered more with player boredom playing a key role

Matt King, senior leisure analyst at Mintel said, “Poker revenues have clearly peaked. The recession is the most obvious culprit, with around a third of poker players now playing less often or for lower stakes because of the economic downturn.

“However, there may be other inherent problems that the industry has to address. Rakeback promotions, for one thing, are minimising margins and this shows the emphasis is on customer numbers, not the profit generated per customer. Lack of time is another factor impacting on play, possibly suggesting work pressures in the current recession are having a toll on players’ free time.”

Poker Swat Seeks Buyer
Online poker training site PokerSwat.com is in talks with a number of parties about a takeover of its business.

A statement from the company said, “For the past few months we have been working hard on upgrading a number of areas on the website and introducing a number of new features. Ultimately, we want to ensure that our members will have the best possible service moving forward and it was decided … that a takeover from an established presence in the industry would be best for all of the stakeholders of the website. Further announcements will be made in the coming weeks with information on how the website is going to move forward.”

Online Poker Banned in Poland
A new bill has just been passed in the Polish Parliament restricting gambling to casinos only.

This means that not only will an estimated 50,000 slot machines, which may have been in places such as bars, cafes, and shopping centres, be removed, but Internet gambling such as online poker, and advertising for games of chance will be banned also.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk stuck to his word and drafted this new legislation which saw a Senate vote of 48 to three with 30 abstentions, in favour of the ban. At the time of writing the bill still required the signature of President Kaczynski.

UK Poker Stalwarts Under Pressure
BlondePoker, one of the UK’s largest poker forums with an online poker skin on the iPoker network, has confirmed it has been given three months to leave the network.

A shareholder in BlondePoker, Tony “Tikay” Kendall, said of the news in a forum post on the site, “BlondePoker Web Ltd. received in writing three months notice of Termination of our Contract with Aqua/i-poker. The document was a complex one — 15 pages long, full of equations and algorithms, but the gist of it was that, on aggregate, the blonde players are winning players. This is, it seems, not acceptable under far-reaching reorganisation plans at iPoker.

“They went on to explain and demonstrate, that, as an example, once the new arrangements come into place, our performance in October would have resulted in a fine in the region of $30,000, based on how much our players won. The net rake which accrued to blonde was about $7,000 I think, so we’d be on a net loss of some $20,000+. Because our players were winning.”

Elsewhere, Dennis Publishing is ceasing publication of Inside Poker magazine and transferring all current subscriptions to its other poker print magazine, Poker Player UK, after the final issue is published at the end of 2009.

bwin Poker Continues to Grow
European betting giant bwin reported an increase in its online poker turnover of 22 percent in the first nine months of 2009 to €81.1 million compared to the same period of 2008 when the figure was €66.5 million.

The third quarter of 2009, to end September, produced online poker turnover of €23.1 million, up 1.2 percent from €22.85 million in the same period of 2008, but increased expenses associated with the launch of the new P5 poker platform meant net poker revenue fell 10.7 percent to €17.7 million between July and September 2009 from €19.8 million the previous year.

The number of active poker customers jumped an impressive 102 percent to 419,465 from 206,791 a year earlier.

P5 was launched in June 2009 and the company took over Italy’s Gioco Digitale in September 2009 which made it Italy’s biggest online poker and gaming provider.

Interwetten Closes Online Poker Room
Interwetten, the Austrian online bookmaker, has closed its online poker site and will refund all player balances as it looks to concentrate on its sports betting, casino, and skill games offerings.

In a statement on its website the company said, “Dear Customers! Show down!

On 17/11/2009 at 08:00 CET the last hand of poker was played, for the time being, at www.interwetten.com. This move ensures that we can now focus all our efforts on offering you an even more attractive range of sports-bets, casino and skill games.”

All player balances were refunded.

PokerStars Secures Cecure Gaming
Cavendish Corporate Finance has successfully managed the sale of mobile gaming software development company, Cecure Gaming, to PokerStars.

Since 2000 Cecure Gaming has operated secure mobile poker gaming technology and its partners previously included UK mobile networks Orange, T-Mobile, 3 Mobile, and Vodafone. It also operated its own gaming brand Aces Royal, as well as other mobile brands such as the World Poker Tour mobile, and Ladbrokes Poker Million mobile.

The deal size was not disclosed.

PartyGaming Signs Italian Poker Deal
PartyGaming has announced that as part of a three-year deal, Italian gaming operator, Fueps has joined its Italian poker network. The site, 4A – The Poker Suite, now joins others already on the network such as Intralot and PartyPoker, bringing with it more than 100 games and 550,000 registered users.

Jim Ryan, chief executive officer of PartyGaming, said, “Fueps is our fifth business-to-business deal this year and is an excellent addition to our Italian poker network.
“This agreement is consistent with our aim to establish a strong presence in the Italian poker market and to be well-placed to take advantage of the further deregulation of online gaming that is already planned to take place in Italy over the next few months.”

PartyGaming most recently made headlines with its purchase of World Poker Tour Enterprises for $12.3 million. PartyPoker sponsors Foumula One driver Giancarlo Fisichella in Italy.

Poker Revenue Down at Sportingbet
Bookmaker Sportingbet recently released its financial information for its first trading quarter from August to October 2009.

The company saw its online poker offering Paradise Poker generate rake of £5 million in Europe during the period, down 2 percent on the £5.1 million achieved in the same period of 2008. Net gaming revenue from poker was also down to £4.2 million from £4.4 million a year earlier.

Poker now makes up 9.4 percent of group revenue, down from 12 percent in the same period of 2008.

In its statement the company said, “The European poker market remains very challenging as the environment remains highly competitive with certain large U.S.-focused poker companies using their significant cash flows and high liquidity to continue to attract customers from companies not serving the US market.”

Entraction Network Expands in Spain
Spanish tourism business group, Globalia, has launched its online poker site, PepeGames, on the Swedish-based poker network, Entraction. The company currently operates a number of Pepe-branded businesses including Pepecar and Pepetravel which helped it achieve an annual turnover of €4 billion.

Julio Fernandez, spokesman for Globalia said, “The online gaming market in Spain, as well as the broader Spanish speaking world, is among the fastest growing in the industry. We wanted to be part of this phenomenon and the Pepe brand was the natural choice given its broad reach in Spain and already prominent and extensive leisure services. We have chosen to power our gaming site with software from Entraction and VistaGaming as we want to work with reliable suppliers and offer the best games for our players.”