Casinos.co.uk: Casino News Archive
Wednesday 12th December 2007
Online Poker Starting to Simmer Down?
Following on from the announcement of his company’s first quarter results, Sportingbet plc CEO Andy McIver told The Evening Standard newspaper the Internet poker boom might just be starting to slow down.
“There has been a lot of hype in internet poker and that has now come off a bit,” said McIver, the top man in a company that closed Paradise Poker earlier in the year, migrating players to the Boss Media network in a major industry deal.
Sportingbet and Paradise Poker were forced out of the US market late last year after the passing of the UIGEA. The legislation made it practically impossible for players in the US to fund their accounts, and saw a £240m write-down in the value of the business, with shares subsequently falling 90%.
The newspaper reported that the quarter 1 results from Sportingbet showed that in the three months to the end of October this year, its poker rake had been almost halved to £4.6m. “That is as a result of significantly reduced liquidity following the loss of US resident players,” the statement accompanying the results clarified. Results for the company were otherwise positive, with a 15% improvement in European sports betting and underlying operating profits. Poker and online casino games now account for 40% of Sportingbet’s business, with up to another 40% being spent by punters on football.
Source:OnlineCasinoNews
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