The online business world is fast paced and dynamic and the online gambling world is no exception. For example, PartyGaming, the owner of PartyPoker and Starluck Casino, as recently as last September expressed a rather pessimistic view of the online poker scene, but three months later changed its tune and is now expressing a more optimistic view of online poker. When Richard Segal, PartyGaming’s CEO, first expressed his negative view of the online poker scene, share prices of public companies within the industry took a nosedive, so Segal’s recent turnaround about the future of online poker has been widely reported by the media in the United Kingdom. In an interesting interview with Reuters, Segal conveyed such optimistic expectations about the industry that the wire service wrote that: "Thanks to the Internet and television, poker exploded outside its U.S. homeland in 2005, and PartyGaming Chief Executive Richard Segal sees technology boosting that boom further in 2006." The Reuters report includes a review of 2005, the year that three online poker companies went public on the London Stock Exchange because of the meteoric rise of online poker. The stock market flotations generated revenues of around two billion dollars and launched games and books that were at the top of Christmas lists around Europe. Reuters further reported that PartyGaming took home about half of that two billion dollar pot and still has big plans for the future. A part of those plans involve making assessments of acquisitions as well as mobile phones and interactive television as a way of accessing a greater number of players. "The beauty of it all is that we've invented nothing new," said in a recent interview by Reuters at PartyGaming's London headquarters. "We're just taking games that have been around for decades and putting them in people's homes." The owners of PartyGaming saw the company’s market value soar to more than seven billion pounds ($12.3 million) after its billion-pound flotation on the London Stock Exchange in June. Then, in September, after a very tentative trading statement was issued, PartyGaming’s shares took a steep dive and only started to recover after the company began more aggressive measures against its competitors. A part of the new measures involve the launching of PartyGaming’s new PartyCasino sites. PartyCasino will run along side PartyGaming’s existing Starluck Casino and two other new games. There will be two new products next year," said Segal. "In the first half there will be a person-to-person skill game and in the second half there will be another more akin to casino (gaming)." PartyGaming will also be launching a “shared purse” which will allow players to switch from game to game. "If you want to go from playing on Starluck Casino to PartyPoker, it's currently the equivalent of going from eBay to Amazon," said Segal. "It's not just one click away, but that will change." In addition to making life easier for players, the shared purse will also make it easier for PartyGaming to cross-market its various games to customers. While PartyGaming receives 80 percent of its revenues from the United States, the company is currently planning to launch its games in six new currencies and languages. These games should become available in 2006. "From an investor's point of view, it will do us well to reduce our dependence on the United States market," said Segal. Asia, however, is another story because of its regulatory environment, its low penetration of broadband Internet and credit cards, and fraud. "I think Asia is more medium-term than short-term", Segal added. Unlike casino games and sports betting, which have transferred to mobile phones successfully, poker is turning out to be a bit more problematic because the games take longer during which time the mobile signals can fail. "A sports bet is very easy to place--it's just one text each way.," said Segal. "But imagine you're playing poker and have a royal flush in your hand, and then you lose connectivity ... We don't want disgruntled customers. It's early days, and we're still looking at test results, but the indications are not getting us overexcited about mobiles". Digital television, on the other hand, holds more promise as a medium where poker players may soon be able to interact. "The more distribution channels customers have to play on, the better," said Segal. "And interactive television is something we're looking at seriously." Segal also said that while PartyGaming would consider buying a sports betting operation, the company was not interested in purchasing a company that took sports bets from the United States. Posted on: December 27, 2005
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