The blonde Online Casino

[ifm]

I won £5k on 32red's casino about 2 years ago, fruit machine it was.
I get constant spam from them to this day (on my email.com account that i check every month or so) as i am a "valued VIP member".

[tikay]

I won £5k on 32red's casino about 2 years ago, fruit machine it was.
I get constant spam from them to this day (on my email.com account that i check every month or so) as i am a "valued VIP member".

"Valued" because they want their £5k back!

[jezza777]

TK,

When you look back to when Blonde began, why you started it and your vision for what it could be what do you see?

Blonde has surley been more sucessful than you could have hoped for(maybe not financially, but money isn't everything, far from it) and will continue to go from strength to strength. Incidental income from table games is fine and dandy but I really don't think that advertising or pushing these fits quite right.

ps

I'll have £100 on black and let it roll!

All the best

Jezza

[suzanne]

I won £5k on 32red's casino about 2 years ago, fruit machine it was.
I get constant spam from them to this day (on my email.com account that i check every month or so) as i am a "valued VIP member".

Really!! Thats interesting.

Obviously there will be one or 2 big winners playing slots but as your average slot player is just a pure gambler its rare to find someone who walked away winning. Good on you  

[Wardonkey]

If it really does grow at the same rate as the Cardroom, I'd settle for that. Do you have evidence to support this view?

I have no evidence, but as you know I have some experience in the gambling industry. I suspect that at the moment your customer base is quite small and therefore predicting that you would maintain a 50/50 split in revenues could be way off the mark. However I think it is reasonable to assume a direct correlation in the growth of the cardroom and the growth of the casino action, but given the small customer base this may well be subject to large deviations. Perhaps Bowmans might be able to provide you with data that would enable you to make more reliable guesstimates?

As you mention in another post casinos are subject to large short term fluctuations. I have worked in casinos that have lost money over quarterly periods (I'm talking about the win/loss here, before overheads are deducted). Running a small casino is a risky business, the edge over the punter is not that great and one lucky streak can be extremely damaging. Making sure you are not over exposed is very important, just as it is important for a winning poker player to exercise bankroll management a casino needs to take precautions to protect itself.

Your dilemma therefore involves more than just the question of the rights and wrongs of pushing the casino, but also the need to grow the business in order to limit the 'standard deviation'.

My feeling is that actively promoting the casino would not be in the best interests of anyone. I'm only guessing when it comes to the amount of business the cardroom and the casino do, but I would suggest that if you continue to grow the cardroom that will be the driver that increases the casino business, and in consequence reduce exposure to an acceptable level. In the short-term you'll just have have to cross your fingers and hope that totalise doesn't go on a tear.

[snoopy1239]

I don't see much problem in highlighting it. There are people out their who play sensibly and will enjoy the experience of the house games. There are avariety of other ways for addicts to lose their money on the net, it might as well go to blonde.

[tikay]

TK,

When you look back to when Blonde began, why you started it and your vision for what it could be what do you see?

Blonde has surley been more sucessful than you could have hoped for(maybe not financially, but money isn't everything, far from it) and will continue to go from strength to strength. Incidental income from table games is fine and dandy but I really don't think that advertising or pushing these fits quite right.

ps

I'll have £100 on black and let it roll!

All the best

Jezza

When you look back to when Blonde began, why you started it and your vision for what it could be what do you see?

I cannot take the credit for starting it. It was Dave's baby, he asked me to join as a Partner before it opened, so from there on in, it was "ours", not mine. I was just immensely flattered to be invited on board, & I don't think I really thought it through much further at the time.

Now, of course, we have a much wider shareholder base. And as Shareholders, we have a duty to optimise earnings, yadda yadd yadda.

My vision? I just wanted a fun place, without all the flaming & insults I saw on other sites, something we could grow & develop into a worthwhile venture - worthwhile (in my case, not necessarily the others) meaning just that - "satisfying", a place to be proud of & have fun, to hang out, & to promote poker with a smile. Note, money was not in there. But it takes money to run, fact. And shareholders invest in it, via Shares, & expect those shares to appreciate. I'm quite chuffed at some of the things blonde has done. The Live Updates, the blonde Bashes, the "campaigns" (better deals for Tournament players, better structures, helping get APAT off the ground, the P4C affair), so yes, it's been immensely satisfying - more than anything else, for the friends I've made & met. And of course, because of blonde, I've been lucky to get some other significant poker income, from Poker 425, Poker Night Live, Sporting Odds, Sky, Poker Week, Wm Hill, etc, & the APAT Chairmanship (which is Honorary of course, no income there, but hugely satisfying), all of these things came from blonde, really. So in one sense, though I've never done anything except put money & hard work into blonde, never taken a penny in exs or salary, I've actually had a financial benefit from other places because of blonde. Been some pain, too though, I gotta say......


Blonde has surley been more sucessful than you could have hoped for(maybe not financially, but money isn't everything, far from it)

Absolutely, I agree, yes.

I never imagined for a moment how time-consuming it would become though. And how much personal abuse I'd have to suffer, from folks who are happy to use a free Forum, but who think they have the right to tell us what we can & can't do with it. I guess it's rain & rainbows.

[tikay]

If it really does grow at the same rate as the Cardroom, I'd settle for that. Do you have evidence to support this view?

I have no evidence, but as you know I have some experience in the gambling industry. I suspect that at the moment your customer base is quite small and therefore predicting that you would maintain a 50/50 split in revenues could be way off the mark. However I think it is reasonable to assume a direct correlation in the growth of the cardroom and the growth of the casino action, but given the small customer base this may well be subject to large deviations. Perhaps Bowmans might be able to provide you with data that would enable you to make more reliable guesstimates?

As you mention in another post casinos are subject to large short term fluctuations. I have worked in casinos that have lost money over quarterly periods (I'm talking about the win/loss here, before overheads are deducted). Running a small casino is a risky business, the edge over the punter is not that great and one lucky streak can be extremely damaging. Making sure you are not over exposed is very important, just as it is important for a winning poker player to exercise bankroll management a casino needs to take precautions to protect itself.

Your dilemma therefore involves more than just the question of the rights and wrongs of pushing the casino, but also the need to grow the business in order to limit the 'standard deviation'.

My feeling is that actively promoting the casino would not be in the best interests of anyone. I'm only guessing when it comes to the amount of business the cardroom and the casino do, but I would suggest that if you continue to grow the cardroom that will be the driver that increases the casino business, and in consequence reduce exposure to an acceptable level. In the short-term you'll just have have to cross your fingers and hope that totalise doesn't go on a tear.

That is a GREAT Post, you clearly understand the industry extremely well, & the maths of it. Oh that I did.....

[nirvana]

We all like to think of poker as gambling with a very large dose of skill, allowing one to be a long term winner if ones skill factor is high enough. So, we promote it comfortable from a moral standpoint (even though it must be causing some people damage) - but.. there's enough of a grey area to not get to antsy about it.

Using an extreme to illustrate a point I think pushing the casino would be like pushing cigarettes, drugs or any other form of potentially addictive and then damaging activity - don't really see where the dilemma is unless one lives in a Pablo Escobaresque state of mind.

[Claw75]

I made the mistake of clicking the blackjack icon one.  Think I had about $600 in my blonde account at the time.  10 minutes later it was $300.  Enjoy the bucks, but I won't be donating through the casino again

[AndrewT]

The casinos attached to online poker rooms are almost a dirty little secret. With minimal promotion you will be surprised just how much money you make. Because the poker room gets nearly all (minus the network's cut) the money the player loses it racks up quickly, particularly if someone starts playing blackjack for $100 a hand. As much as a lot of people here would consider themselves not to be a casino player, it doesn't take very many to have a punt for it to make some real money.

As long as it's easy for the gamblers to find it, you don't really need to push it much, particularly considering that a large proportion of your users might feel almost offended at being viewed as a casino games player.

I made the mistake of clicking the blackjack icon one.  Think I had about $600 in my blonde account at the time.  10 minutes later it was $300.  Enjoy the bucks, but I won't be donating through the casino again

I'm only guessing here Claire, but considering you are mostly a low limit/small buy-in player, Blonde may well have earned more from you in those ten minutes than from the whole of the rest of your poker play. Powerful stuff.

We've all seen gamblers drop large amounts in a live casino. Exactly the same thing happens on the internet, except an online casino has virtually zero overheads.

As for the moral aspect, I can understand Tikay's reticence about pushing the casino games. Is there a difference between running a shop which sells cigarettes (among other things), and saying 'Would you like to buy some cigarettes?' to someone as they pay for their paper?

[Graham C]

Online casinos are a slippery road downhill imo, it's too easy to get hooked and lose loads in a very short period of time.   It's not something that I'm going to partake in, tried it, enjoyed it, found it too easy to carry on.

I know someone that owes over £45k from online roulette.

[turny]

surely the casino runs to a guaranteed win % like a fruit machine?

i cant believe that every number spun on roulette is totally random please correct me if im wrong

[AndrewT]

surely the casino runs to a guaranteed win % like a fruit machine?

i cant believe that every number spun on roulette is totally random please correct me if im wrong

It is all genuinely random - they're not fixed like fruit machines. You can win on roulette just like you can at a live casino. Of course, the zeroes will get you in the long run.

[kinboshi]

surely the casino runs to a guaranteed win % like a fruit machine?

i cant believe that every number spun on roulette is totally random please correct me if im wrong

Surely it HAS to be random.  Even if it is, the house still has the edge.  Or are you saying that the software purposefully selects the winning number based on the bets that the user places?