27-01-2006

25-01-2006

2005, Crown Year for Poker

Mostly due to the televised poker shows, playing poker in online casinos has become the hottest activity of 2005. Richard Segal, chief executive of one of the biggest online casinos, believes that the poker rage will continue in 2006, thanks to the improvement of poker software technology. 

Playing poker was mega popular in 2005, taking three huge online casinos flying high at the London stock market, generating revenues of approximately $2 billion. In 2005 special poker games, poker books and poker materials were on top of the Christmas-lists of millions of people all around the globe.

Segal states that the best thing about the poker madness is that there is no need to invent anything new, because all the products already existed. Poker games are already around for hundreds of years and all you have to do is put them into people's homes, through online poker rooms.

The largest part of Segal's revenue comes from the United States, approximately 80%, where online gambling is still considered an illegal activity. Therefore, Segal is planning to target more markets outside the US, starting by launching their games in 6 new currencies and 6 new languages. With these new options, he wants to be less dependent on the traffic of the United States. This way they want to become less dependent on traffic from the United States, mostly focusing his attention to Asia.

Segal is not completely confident in the Asian online gambling market right now, due to the problems with the regulatory environment, the low amount of broadband internet and internet fraud. He believes that Asia is more a medium-term project than a short-term one.    

Segal is now considering buying or starting up online casinos that offer sport wagering. He claims that he is not interested in any online casinos that take sports bets from the United States, but will consider opportunities from those from other countries.