Issue N33, 2007
August 30, 2007
Bettson Announces Increase in Profits
The Swedish online casino company, Bettson recently published its financial reports for the second quarter of 2007 and showed that it was doing a lot better that other companies in the industry. The publicly trading company had its net sales go up from just over $9-million to $22.5-million – an impressive increase of 147%. In the same quarter of the previous year, Bettson experienced a net loss and so the company had cause for celebration with an overall net operating profit of nearly $7-million this time around.
There are several reasons for these successful quarterly results. Bettson recently launched a new French language site that seems to have grabbed a good portion of the market. It also shifted its focus to rewarding its current members with better offers instead of spending large amounts trying to woo new customers. This policy obviously seems to be have paid off, as increased traffic on the company’s Italian, Greek and Spanish sites have shown in recent months. A downside of the past quarter has been from the Turkish market: Following tougher gambling regulations in this country, Bettson reported a sharp drop in traffic on its Turkish language site.
Absolute Poker has Absolute Upgrade
Exciting news for poker lovers comes from one of the internet’s most popular poker rooms – Absolute Poker. The company has announced the launching of a new upgraded version of its software, to be known as Version 8. Existing customers will have their installed programs automatically updated with the new software when they next access the poker room, while new customers can download the program when they visit the site.
The new Version 8 offers fantastic new features such as top-of-the-range graphics, increased dealing speeds, resizable tables, more multi play options and resizable tables. Players will be able to enjoy other unique features, including no less than three table views to select and table arrangement with one click of their mouse. The new software is the result of months of hard work by designers and programmers and came in response to specific demands by players at Absolute Poker’s online site. A spokesman for Absolute Poker said of this new version that it would “officially ‘unlevel’ the online poker playing field”.
Titan Poker to Host Online Poker Championships
An online poker tournament, reminiscent of the World Series of Poker tournament that is held annually as a land-based event, will be staged by one of the internet’s leading poker sites, Titan Poker towards the end of the year. Titan announced that the exciting ten-day European Championship of Online Poker (ECOOP) event would be held at the end of November and is sure to draw crowds of players. To qualify for entry into the tournament, players can either buy in directly or qualify through satellite tournaments or sit and go events held in the running up period.
Titan has guaranteed to give away at least $2.5-million during the event – another good reason for players to try their luck. The main event comes with a prize pool of a whopping $1-million, while a significant amount will also be given away as prize money in at least one other main event for every day of the tournament. And if that is not enough, the overall top fifty players in the ECOOP tournament can stand in line to increase their winnings by another $50,000 in a freeroll event to take place one day after the main event. Finally, winners will also be able to sport a specially designed ECOOP bracelet to mark their victory.
Online Casino Bets on Liverpool
Top English football club, Liverpool, has signed a lucrative sponsorship deal with popular online casino and sportsbetting site, Unibet for a period of three years. The new contract will mean that Unibet becomes the football club’s exclusive betting partner. Future plans include a unique Liverpool branded gambling site that will offer a vast range of Unibet wagering options, including casino games, poker rooms and sportsbetting facilities. The site is expected to be launched by the end of this present year. Players will be able to enter exciting competitions and stand in line to win Liverpool related prizes such as tickets to games, exclusive stadium tours and team paraphernalia.
Malta on its Way to Become Online Gambling HQ
According to a report in the Malta Times this week, 27 online casino companies have indicated that they are interested in moving their operations to the island. The main motivation behind this trend is the fact that Malta qualifies to make the United Kingdom’s ‘white list’ – countries that meet the UK’s rigorous gambling standards and can therefore tap into the UK’s lucrative gambling industry. Malta and Gibraltar got the green light to license online casinos from their shores but other countries were not so lucky. Tasmania, Netherlands Antilles and the Canadian reservation of Alexander did not meet the requirements and their applications were therefore rejected. Top online companies such as those powered by Cryptologic are already moving some of their operations from the Caribbean to Malta.