Gambling News - June 2005 Edition

"New Survey Shows More than 60% of Industry Experts Believe Gambling Will be Dominant Offer in Online Gambling in 2-3 Years"

Is it the Poker renaissance that's fueling the growth of the online gambling industry or is the other way around?

Industry analysts are estimating the amount of money gambled over the Internet on online poker websites will exceed sixty billion U.S. dollars this year. They are also saying that online poker will soon dominate all other Internet gambling games. Most industry experts predict that the annual global commission from online gambling will be more than four billion U.S. dollars in the next two to three years. These are stunning predictions.

Poker is experiencing a renaissance and while some believe that the online gambling industry is fueling the rebirth of poker, it may be more accurate to say that it is poker which is fueling the growth of the online gambling industry. Among experts on the online gambling industry, online poker is the hottest topic around as well and is also viewed as the current sponsor of growth for Internet gambling. In short, the popularity of Internet poker is incredible. Meanwhile forecasters claim that there is still great potential for further worldwide popularity and interest in Internet poker.

The increasing number of successful television broadcasts that feature poker matches and tournaments is another reason that poker has experienced such a fantastic global rebirth. A few examples of successful poker television coverage are the World Series of Poker on ESPN, Celebrity Poker on Bravo, and European Poker Tour on Eurosport.

Studies also point out, however, that together with rising competition and falling revenues per player, the online poker market is bound to become tougher in the future. Europe is being tipped as the place to go to for geographical expansion. Over half the industry experts believe that Europe offers the greatest potential for online poker in the future. PartyPoker, one of the market leaders in the online gambling industry, has plans to make its presence known on television throughout Europe in the very near future and already operates its website in both English and German.

The status of online poker has also gone up. Within the global business and financial arena, Sportingbet, one of the major online gambling firms in the UK, just bought the poker website, Paradise Poker. Sportingbet paid 300 million US dollars for the site, which may seem a bit exorbitant for a site launched only six years ago, but more than half of the industry experts surveyed, believe that 300 million US dollars was a fair price for the purchase.

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