F E A T U R E T H E S TA G E I S S E T
“Poker is a live game, and that live heritage is much more important for convergence than is the case with sports betting” Laurent Tapie, president, International Stadiums Poker Tour
September
2008
November
2008
PKR Live holds its ?rst championship event in London
August
2009
Grand Final of the inaugural Partouche Poker Tour in Cannes
World Poker Tour brand acquired by PartyGaming
“If you’re Zynga, do you want to be the next PokerStars or do you want to sell your property to PokerStars for a certain amount of money?” Matt Broughton, freelance poker presenter
“People are always going to engage and continue being social, with the concept of winning a side effect rather than a key driver” Angus Nisbet, gaming director, Rank Interactive
“Without the support of an online site, EPT wouldn’t have been successful, so it was very important that players were sent to an offline event” Thomas Kremser, former EPT tournament director
July
2006
Record-setting World Series of Poker Main Event is broadcast on ESPN
has approved such an alliance – suggests that fears once held about threats to regulatory approval should not be such a sticking point provided the partner in question stayed away from operating in a post-UIGEA United States. Indeed, even those with a US presence over the last ?ve years had been considered potential allies for a short period at least, with Wynn’s ultimately futile pact with PokerStars and Fertitta’s ?irtation with Full Tilt Poker both testament to this. As freelance poker presenter Matt Broughton notes: “If I decided right now to launch my own poker site then the ?rst thing I would do is look at the market leaders and just try to do as good a job as they do. Only then can you start thinking about what to do next. “I think anybody that comes in thinking they are going to spot a gap in the industry that nobody else has is probably doing a disservice to those people who have been top of the pile for so long,” he says, although he is willing to accept that the partnership element need not be so tentative, adding that a virtual co-opting of experts’ technology and even personnel via takeovers remains a more than viable alternative. The outright acquisition of experienced European online performers has been a common theme in recent months, notably through International Game Technology (IGT), which bought Swedish poker network Entraction in July for around $70m, Bally’s undisclosed-amount acquisition of the B2B arm of French poker company Chiligaming in February and Shuffle Master’s purchase of the Ongame poker network for €19.5m in March. At the time of the sale, Chiligaming CEO Alex Dreyfus said: “We are one of the companies who never took a bet in the US, and will now be positioning ourselves as a
boutique B2B provider – we may not be the biggest but we are more ?exible than others in terms of both services and ideas.” His comments encapsulate one of the key concerns of prospective market entrants, namely the balance between taking on the expertise of an experienced online operator and keeping a safe distance from any group tarnished with a post-UIGEA legacy. But the Shuffle Master/ Ongame deal contains another element indicative of the relative uncertainty about the future of the US market, namely a €10m payment contingent on the US regulating in the next ?ve years. Still, Ongame managing director Peter Bertilsson remains con?dent of the brand’s capacity to export the concept of “making online poker come to real life” to complement Shuffle Master’s land-based expertise, particularly in casino, and 300 global licences. Ongame’s live poker tour, the Grand Series of Poker (GSOP), is described by Bertilsson as “a great marketing tool that works very well...it will become more important and will have even more impact in the US when the market opens [as] landbased casinos will want people to come to their venues as soon as the States regulate”. Broughton has ?rst-hand experience of the value of such events, having worked on live in-venue broadcasts for both Betfair and PokerStars. He reveals: “Companies like Betfair will have their sponsored pros along as ambassadors during their live events, meaning you can come along and play against them and they hand out the cheque to the winner at the end. For Betfair it means people want to come along as exciting things happen. It’s very hard to translate that excitement online. “Tied into that the streaming is designed to add to that excitement and make the people who aren’t there wish they were,” he
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