NetPlay TV announced on Friday the acquisition of Venturygames.co.uk, and Toucanwin.com, the mobile gambling and skill gaming businesses of Info-download Ltd., a subsidiary of Zed Worldwide S.A.

The interactive gaming company said it has signed an exclusive two-year sales agreement with Zed to sell the NetPlay TV range of interactive gaming solutions to its worldwide mobile network client base. As part of these transactions, NetPlay TV said it will also acquire the United Kingdom mobile quiz business, “Grab a Grand,” from Info-download.

The story goes on to explain that Netplay TV intends to offers its services across all available channels, including TV and conventional internet.

Nevertheless, mobile is both the newest and fastest growing of the available gaming channels. Mobile technologies (hardware & software) are approaching a tipping point in pricing that is pushing them toward critical mass. Currently, the market is in a place where the technology itself is readily accessible. The only remaining obstacle to mass consumer adoption of mobile technologies, now, is time. And that time can now be measure in years rather than decades.

For mobile service providers (igamign or otherwise), the time has never been either more ripe or critical for expansion. I suspect that not only are there huge gaing to be had by mobile service providers who invest now in expanding their business and product offers, but future losses for those who don’t.

Some of the perspective in this whitepaper, moreover, is provided by our very own CEO, Nicky Senyard. Essentially, the 58 page document features an article she wrote titled Marketing Amid Recession: Strategies for Onilne Poker Operators. In the article, Nicky discusses how online poker operators have and opportunity in a recession to both ramp up their marketing efforts and consolidate their control over their marketing spend by leveraging affiliate marketing because it helps them:

• generate a better return on their marketing spend,
• better target & engage online poker players,
• and convert offline players into online ones.

During a recession, there are just as many players/consumers as before, it’s just that their spending habits have changed. What this means is the the balance of supply & demand has shifted, and any business that is quick to respond to that new balance of supply and demand may not only survive an economic slowdown, but prosper throughout it.

As for all the other perspective in the whitepaper, you’ll just have download it and have a read for yourself.

So when you hear about an organization that’s inextricably lilnked to the online world advertising in print publications, you can’t help but to notice. And that’s just what the Poker Players Alliance is up to. As OCR reports:

The Poker Players Alliance launched a new newspaper advertising campaign Tuesday aimed at underscoring the need for federal regulation of poker.
[...]
“It’s time for some straight talk,” the ad declares, with a picture of a hand holding a royal flush over a poker table as the background.

The ad goes on to argue that sensible federal regulation is the only way to protect the millions of Americans who play Internet poker every day.
[...]
It adds that the federal government has neglected its responsibilities; wrongly believing that censoring the Internet will prove effective.

The PPA has been stepping up its grassroots efforts in October, when it launched the an online resource for poker players to find out how various Representatives have supported poker rights. For them to take their struggle to the print realm, however, and directly target decision makers rather than voters, is a notable change in tactics.

Watch a Video of PPA Chairman Alfonse D’Amato.

]]> http://comment.incomeaccess.com/2008/12/11/ppa-launches-print-ads/feed/ http://comment.incomeaccess.com/2008/12/09/social-media-revives-uk-pool-betting/ http://comment.incomeaccess.com/2008/12/09/social-media-revives-uk-pool-betting/#comments Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:10:34 +0000 CT Moore http://comment.incomeaccess.com/?p=53 It seems that football pools are on the upswing in the UK. You see, after the National Lottery came into the market in 1994, brick & mortar pools waned. But now that players can enjoy a kind of interactivity and user-experience that a brick & mortar pools just can’t offer, it seems the private sector is poised to reclaim some ground over the National Lottery. As Lorien Pilling reports for iGaming News:

It is tempting to see the social networking phenomenon and online poker as being behind this recent renewed interested in the pool-betting business model. Pool betting is an ideal model by which to leverage social networking features because it brings a group of players together — all of whom maintain an opinion on the weekend’s fixture list. So it’s no surprise that the modern generation of pool games Web sites include community features, forums, chat facilities, player profiles and the option to create private leagues with friends.

Of course, there are other factors at work. For instance, there sheer convenience of betting online as opposed to wagering a bet with the National Lottery at a betting shop has surely contributed to this trend. Also, as Pilling notes, the influence of poker cannot be overlooked:

[...] poker, after all, is effectively operating a pool-betting model. In tournaments, players contribute to an overall prize pool, and the players that fill the top places take the biggest share of the pool. It means that there is a new generation of punters who are comfortable with the pool model and online operators could be looking to exploit this familiarity across other products.

This isn’t, however, to play down the social effect of web 2.0. Just consider how CentSports.com has prospered. Centsports does not let players deposit, but rather gives them 10 cents for free, and as soon as a player reaches $20, they can cash out. Despite the unlikeliness of users ever really making any money (and not much if they do), the site has still been a smashing success because of it’s social networking features.

Essentially, brands in a variety of verticals have experience the economies of treating a market as a community. It’s not surprising, then, that such benefits might be playing a serious role in reviving UK bpool betting.

Once more participants of the survey will get access to executive summary findings of the survey and IA will also donate $1 to the charity “One Lap Top per Child Foundation” for every survey that’s completed.

Take the survey now!

The survey is 28 questions short and will be open for data collection until the 5th January 2009.

For those of you who are interested in learning more about results of the last survey just make sure you get your hands on the the next CAP Magazine and look for “4 Super Affiliate Strategies:
Findings from the Income Access Affiliate Survey”.

Thanks for your support!

Well, now new research shows that mobile gaming is not only going to continue to grow despite economic slowdown, but it will more than double. As Gaming Intelligence reports:

A new report published by Juniper Research is predicting that total wagers on mobile phones will more than double in 2009 to over $3.6 billion, benefiting from the increased availability of mobile betting services. In comparison the report expects user spending on mobile TV and mobile games to be adversely impacted by the current global economic downturn.

Report author Dr Windsor Holden said: “Gambling is essentially a recession-proof industry, as while there may be marginal reductions in level of stakes amongst casual users, the overall appetite for gambling per se will be unaffected. Furthermore, with the growing availability of betting services on portal, the mobile is an increasingly convenient and user-friendly means of placing a bet.”

One element likely fueling this growth is the mobile sector writ large. Mobile services are still a very new market, and this is a time when all the necessary technologies (hardware & software) are hitting a tipping point in pricing. That is, very recently it became very affordable to use all the services offered through mobile devices — such as the internet. Even mobile device management is getting cheaper.

All in all, the odds are in favor of mobile gaming (no pun intended). Consider: a recession proof product combined with a technology on the cusp of critical mass. Any way you look at it, there’s quite a bit of opportunity in the mobile gaming sector.

You may have seen us in familiar hangouts such as:

• GPWA
• CAP
• betweendrinks.com P.S we are having our christmas party tonight so be sure to check out betweendrinks for photos from this great night!

New locals:

• Affiliates4U
• Linkedin

We hope to see you there soon!

Well, in a recession, strategic marketing will often mean not just getting a higher return on your marketing investment, but doing so by focusing on tangible results (as opposed to less tangible objective, such as branding). And in last week’s edition of iGaming News, our very own CEO, Nicky Senyard was discussing just how that can apply to online poker operators. In an article called Recession Marketing Strategies for Online Poker Operators, Nicky discussed the recession opportunity for online poker operators to both ramp up their marketing efforts and consolidate their control over their marketing spend. In the article, Nicky covers how poker operators can leverage affiliate marketing to:

• generate a better return on their marketing spend,
• better target & engage online poker players,
• and convert offline players into online ones.

During a recession, there are just as many players/consumers as before, it’s just that their spending habits have changed. What this means is the the balance of supply & demand has shifted, and operators (or any other business) who are quick to respond to that new balance of supply and demand may not only survive an economic downturn, but prosper through it.

Nicky’s article, then, might be worth a look at for igaming entrepreneurs who want to shit their marketing efforts in a more strategic direction. After all, if there are fewer consumer dollars to capture,every dollar you capture gives you that much more of an edge over the competition.

For starters, Nevada wants more revenues, and secondly, Congress needs more taxes. It’s a little more complex than both Nevada and Congress suddenly realizing that there’s money to be had from online gaming. Rather, new changes to how legislation is introduced makes it necessary for the congressman or senator responsible show how their legislation can be funded. Consequently, getting online gaming regulated starts looking easier because it’s not only tax-revenue positive, but self-sustaining. As the Reno Gazette-Journal reports:

The legalization of Internet gambling will be the hottest federal issue facing Nevada’s gaming industry in the next few years, the president of the American Gaming Association said.
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The need for new tax money could drive its legalization in both houses of Congress, said Frank Fahrenkopf, the AGA president and CEO.

“There have been projections circulated on the Hill that it can raise billions of dollars in new federal revenue,” said Fahrenkopf, a Reno High School graduate. “So we can expect that the whole issue of Internet gambling will be front and center in the next Congress.”

Federal lawmakers see that potential tax revenue from Internet gaming could fuel their legislative agenda, Fahrenkopf said.

“Congress has adopted a pay-as-you-go system,” he said. “So any congressman or senator who introduces a piece of legislation that is going to cost something will also have to show how they are going to pay for it, either by cutting spending in one place or raising taxes in another. So we know under those circumstances, they will be looking around at a place to get additional revenue.”

Of course, the same article also points out that the Nevada industry, itself, is partly divided on the issue. Nonetheless, Fahrenkopf’s perspective of how the new Congressional pay-as-you-go system might effect the future of online gambling in the US is rather interesting.

The company said it has received £120 million in stakes thus far in 2008, a significant rise against the £10.5 million it reported during the same period last year.

“People are staying at home, not just because it’s getting colder, but to save money, too,” said Dermot Smurfit, GameAccount chief operating officer, in a prepared statement. “As markets all over the world are melting, we’re pleased that more and more people are turning to the Internet and skill gaming for their entertainment.”

Of course, a more than tenfold growth rate can’t be chalked up only to the recession. After all, the GameAccount has pursued a number of marketing strategies, such as an affiliate program (disclosure: the GameAccount is an Income Access partner).

Nevertheless, the positive effects that this economy is having on ecommerce has been seen across the spectrum of industries. For instance, eMarketer is predicting that this will not only be the first year that the internet purchases will surpass brick & mortar ones for holiday shopping, but will do so by more than double. It only makes sense, then, that online entertainment is going to experience relative (if not absolute) growth while its tertiary counterparts feel the effects of a slowdown.

There is a catch in all this, however. Just as a market slowdown can mean new opportunity rather than less opportunity, competition over those opportunities will likely increase. That is, with online operators capturing more of a player’s money staked, they are going to have both the incentive and the resources to step up their marketing efforts.

If the current state of the economy does have positive effects for certain strategic igaming operators, then, those operators are going to have to consider marketing tactics that offer them maximum control over and return on their marketing spend. Should these effects persist, moreover, we may even see a “thinning of the heard.” That is, those operators who are are strategic at this level may very capture a critical shares of the market to the detriment of their competition.