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2009-01-07
iPoker no-download facility gives players the flexible and quick option
Paddy Power Poker.com has launched its new no-download, instant play iPoker software to complement its more conventional download suite of games. Currently only Texas Hold'em games are available, but company spokesmen say the poker room is working hard to bring a full suite of games to the Instant Play version.
“We’re thrilled to extend our product offering to include a non-downloadable version of our software. The fact that players can now use the Instant Play software anytime, anywhere gives them the flexibility to play at times that were previously unsuitable” said Paddy Power, Communications Manager for paddypowerpoker.com.
“It also means that players who don’t want to download the standard software client can try out the iPoker software on paddypowerpoker.com.”
The instant play facility enables Mac, Linux, Unix and PC users to play, opening up a wider market to the new poker room. The company is offering Cash/Ring games, Single Table Tourneys or Multi Table Tourneys, and the software can be used on most popular widely Internet browsers such as Mozilla Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6+, operating systems and platforms.
Existing Paddy Power players can use their accounts to play on the no-download version without any further action.
2009-01-07
Revenues and profits both up
The London-based Gaming Media Group has posted solid results for year ended 31st October 2008, showing increased growth of 47 percent in online poker rake, and 57 percent in group revenues overall taking into account casino, bingo and TV advertising. Profit before tax has also grown by four times to GBP 1 million.
Management revealed that the group is adding around 10 000 registrations a month from across Europe in its poker business, PokerHeaven.com, with a conversion rate averaging 30 percent in its top 10 territories and group revenues in excess of Euro 1 million per month.
The group took the opportunity to announce the imminent launch of its new casino offering ‘CasinoJoy’ mid-January, with over 200 games provided by Cryptologic. CasinoJoy.com will fall under the group-wide affiliate brand, HeavenAffiliates.com, to be launched at CAP London on 29th January.
This (January) month also sees PokerHeaven.com launch “The Player Tracker”, its third consecutive game-management tool unique to the International Poker Network (IPN). The Player Tracker, unavailable on any other IPN site, will enable players to replay every hand in real time and benefit from poker tracking technology.
Media Gaming Group's television operations, The Poker Channel, which premieres the European Cash Game this month featuring 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event winner Peter Eastgate, expects to add Poland and Portugal to its distribution network in the first calendar quarter of 2009, taking it to over 16 million homes in 18 countries. The Poker Channel will also start broadcasting French, German and Dutch language versions of its shows in early 2009.
Crispin Nieboer, CEO for Gaming Media Group said “Our pan-European and localised approach, together with significant advances in our CRM infrastructure, has been key to the extensive growth in 2008. We forecast strong organic growth in 2009, not just from poker, but from our new casino and bingo products as well. We are also investigating more acquisition and joint-venture opportunities, where we can utilise our infrastructure to absorb similar businesses, and apply our lower CPA, higher conversion and player lifetime values.”
Gaming Media Group’s subsidiary businesses include The Poker Channel, PokerHeaven.com, CasinoJoy.com, BingoJoy.com and BlackjackHeaven.com.
2009-01-07
One complaint sinks two expensive television ads
Ladbrokes and its agency, M&C Saatchi have responded with remarkable speed to the Advertising Standards Authority ban on two of its television ads after a single complaint from the public (see previous InfoPowa report).
The duo placed a cheeky full page print advert in The Sun newspaper, which will also appear in The Racing Post, as a mock appeal to find the sole complainant against its expensive television adverts, showing a photoID kit head under the headline "Missing - a funny bone."
The advert explains the company's tongue-in-cheek desire to find the complainant to give him a hug and a bunch of flowers to say sorry and can be viewed here: http://offlinehbpl.hbpl.co.uk/NewsAttachments/MAC/ladbrokesmissinglarge.jpg
On a more serious note, Ladbrokes has lodged an appeal with the Independent Reviewer of ASA Adjudications to review the decision, believing that it was an incorrect application of the CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code and effectively constitutes a ruling against using humour in gambling advertisements.
John O’Reilly, the managing director of Ladbrokes Remote Betting and Gaming, said: "Ladbrokes fully supports the code of practice relating to gambling advertising but this ruling is an example of political correctness going too far. The idea that an advertisement using absurd humour is somehow going to make gambling dangerously appealing is nonsense.
"We don’t believe that banning humour is what the code was designed to achieve."
The betting company ran two TV ads, described as "pastiches of documentary-style filming", telling the story of two adrenaline junkies who came to a fatal end after taking one risk too many.
One of the ads featured a fictional eyepatch-wearing great white shark operator character called Willem Snyman, described as a "mentor and oceanic guru", who talked about the demise of a shark-diving student. The character recounts how his student's appetite for risk and thrills saw him attaching bacon and sausages to his wetsuit and diving into shark infested waters wearing a seal suit, with predictably fatal results.
The other ad was narrated by the fictional J "Snake Eyes" Kowalski, a pilot and skydiving pioneer, who told viewers about the demise of a skydiving pupil who sought the adrenalin rush of using smaller and smaller parachutes until one day he jumped with just a potato crisp packet, again with fatal consquences.
Both ads ended with the line "If only he'd seen Ladbrokes Casino.com it would have quenched his thrill buds."
When the ASA banned the ads, Ladbrokes and its agency pointed out that the humour was "deliberately exaggerated and ridiculous" and that the cautionary nature of the stories "actively encouraged caution and moderation over extreme behaviour and recklessness".
In April last year online gambling companies Paddy Power and Intercasino became the first gambling companies to have campaigns banned by the advertising regulator.