Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

Betfair's move to the Ongame network was no surprise, & more consolidation is on the way.

Stars & Tilt rule, & for the rest, it's all about finding niche angles.

In the short term, the World Cup has hurt the European sites (as budgeted & Forecast), but the likes of Party, Boyle, 888, Ladbrokes & i-Poker have all recorded serious revenue reductions from their poker rooms. The decline at Ladbrokes has been really sharp, they seem to have lost their way somewhere.

I'm often curious as to why the money-machine that is 'Stars do not have an Online Casino. Anyone know?

Even Tilt, Stars, & UB seem to be much lower profile in Vegas this year, though Everest are still spending bucketloads of money out here. They must be much bigger than I ever realised.

[The Camel]

Betfair's move to the Ongame network was no surprise, & more consolidation is on the way.

Stars & Tilt rule, & for the rest, it's all about finding niche angles.

In the short term, the World Cup has hurt the European sites (as budgeted & Forecast), but the likes of Party, Boyle, 888, Ladbrokes & i-Poker have all recorded serious revenue reductions from their poker rooms. The decline at Ladbrokes has been really sharp, they seem to have lost their way somewhere.

I'm often curious as to why the money-machine that is 'Stars do not have an Online Casino. Anyone know?

Evn Tilt, Stars, & UB seem to be much lower profile in Vegas this year, though Everest are still spending bucketloads of money out here. They must be much bigger than I ever realised.

AFAIK Stars don't have a casino because they want to tay in the US market, it's a grey area whether they are allpwed or not legally now, but they are remaining there.

If they had a caino they would definitely not be allowed in the US market.

I'll be popping down to the Rio tomorrow to cheer on my remaining %'s. If you fancy a spot of lunch send me a text.

[tikay]

Betfair's move to the Ongame network was no surprise, & more consolidation is on the way.

Stars & Tilt rule, & for the rest, it's all about finding niche angles.

In the short term, the World Cup has hurt the European sites (as budgeted & Forecast), but the likes of Party, Boyle, 888, Ladbrokes & i-Poker have all recorded serious revenue reductions from their poker rooms. The decline at Ladbrokes has been really sharp, they seem to have lost their way somewhere.

I'm often curious as to why the money-machine that is 'Stars do not have an Online Casino. Anyone know?

Evn Tilt, Stars, & UB seem to be much lower profile in Vegas this year, though Everest are still spending bucketloads of money out here. They must be much bigger than I ever realised.

AFAIK Stars don't have a casino because they want to tay in the US market, it's a grey area whether they are allpwed or not legally now, but they are remaining there.

If they had a caino they would definitely not be allowed in the US market.

I'll be popping down to the Rio tomorrow to cheer on my remaining %'s. If you fancy a spot of lunch send me a text.

Thanks Keith, will do.

I've spent a good bit of time in the Stars. Tilt, & UB Lounges this year, & it's weird - they do not have a single logo or name on display!

The Lounges are in their corporate colour schemes, but that's it. You'd not know whose Lounge you were in if, well, you did not know whose Lounge you were in. What's that all about?

[tikay]

I just realised that Everest Poker have their logos & name everywhere, in & outside their Lounge, & as sponsors, on every Table.

And yet there is not a single 'Stars, Tilt or Party logo in sight.

[lazaroonie]

cant see you getting your deposit back on the rental car

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[Dino]

I just realised that Everest Poker have their logos & name everywhere, in & outside their Lounge, & as sponsors, on every Table.

And yet there is not a single 'Stars, Tilt or Party logo in sight.

There is an ongoing lawsuit concerning Everest sponsorship.
Harrah's are trying to make sure only Everest logos are seen to force them to pay this years money.

[tikay]

I just realised that Everest Poker have their logos & name everywhere, in & outside their Lounge, & as sponsors, on every Table.

And yet there is not a single 'Stars, Tilt or Party logo in sight.

There is an ongoing lawsuit concerning Everest sponsorship.
Harrah's are trying to make sure only Everest logos are seen to force them to pay this years money.

Ahhhhhh, now THAT would add up.

[TightEnd]

The blonde-sourced clicks have really surprised me, & I'm not sure I should admit it, but the blonde-sourced clicks equal my Twitter & FB ones combined.  Extraordinary.

Shouldn't surprise you. The eyeballs you reach on here (as the vast majority of forum viewers will read this thread in particular whereas they will pick and choose others ) will exceed those from Twitter and Facebook for the time being though you'd expect that to balance up over the medium term. At a slow rate if you are active posting on here, at a faster rate if you are not.

[kinboshi]

The blonde-sourced clicks have really surprised me, & I'm not sure I should admit it, but the blonde-sourced clicks equal my Twitter & FB ones combined.  Extraordinary.

Shouldn't surprise you. The eyeballs you reach on here (as the vast majority of forum viewers will read this thread in particular whereas they will pick and choose others ) will exceed those from Twitter and Facebook for the time being though you'd expect that to balance up over the medium term. At a slow rate if you are active posting on here, at a faster rate if you are not.

There's another major reason, imo.

On here tikay engages his viewers/readers/audience/groupies, talks about things in his own inimitable style, joins in a dialogue with those who respond, etc.  It's what he does well - and people love it. 

Tikay was very reluctant to embrace twitter, and to be honest he still hasn't.  There's very little of his personality coming over in his tweets.  Granted, it's more difficult to do this in 140 characters at a time than on here with an unlimited word count.  I think the approach that's being taken with twitter isn't quite there.  Compare and contrast to celebrities who have trillions of followers - such as Stephen Fry who manage to carry their humour and style over to twitter.  It's all about engaging on twitter, rather than broadcasting.  With a different approach, I'm sure tikay could carve a very strong niche and a loyal group of followers in the thousands.

[boldie]

Most of them would be train spotters though, no?

[kinboshi]

Most of them would be train spotters though, no?

A few.  But I'm sure tikay wouldn't mind that one bit!  Neither would SP, as I'm sure a fair few trainspotters might be interested in playing online poker too.

[TheChipPrince]

In the short term, the World Cup has hurt the European sites (as budgeted & Forecast), but the likes of Party, Boyle, 888, Ladbrokes & i-Poker have all recorded serious revenue reductions from their poker rooms. The decline at Ladbrokes has been really sharp, they seem to have lost their way somewhere.

Is there a danger a poker room could go 'pop' at some time, literally shut down overnight with no warning (to most) and ppl could lose the lot?

[Laxie]

In the short term, the World Cup has hurt the European sites (as budgeted & Forecast), but the likes of Party, Boyle, 888, Ladbrokes & i-Poker have all recorded serious revenue reductions from their poker rooms. The decline at Ladbrokes has been really sharp, they seem to have lost their way somewhere.

Is there a danger a poker room could go 'pop' at some time, literally shut down overnight with no warning (to most) and ppl could lose the lot?

I used to play on Jetset Poker - and they did just that.  I didn't lose much, but others lost serious money.  Was very odd.  We were sat playing a tourney when a notice popped up saying something along the lines of 'This site is closing down in 10 minutes.  Thanks for your business.'  And that was that.

[tikay]

Morning, & all noted as to my inadequacies as to Twitter. The problem is, I just don't understand it, what to do, how to do it, & I need spoon-feding as to how to do it well, or even better.

I think comparisions with the Stephen Fry tweeting model are wrong, though. I'm not really gonna get away with "drove to London, traffic awful", or "done the Show tonight, I was crap", "met (z-list) celeb today".  He can, (if that's what he does), but I can't.

Examples, please, & I'll try to weed the serious replies from the piss-takes, though Heaven knows how I'll know which is which.

I don't, for example, know what this means, or how to apply it......

On here tikay engages his viewers/readers/audience/groupies, talks about things in his own inimitable style, joins in a dialogue with those who respond, etc.  It's what he does well - and people love it. 

What is the suggestion? - that via Tweets I have a moan & groan about music in public places, the price of eggs, what a tosser Wooly Jumper is, how dumb is the UNITE union, my weight problems, my packing up smoking? Who on earth would be interested in any of that?

This really matters to me - it's my job, & I take it seriously. I have to excel at my job, mediocre - which is where I'm at right now - is no good to me, I'd rather retire. SP seem happy enough, & have sent me several nice notes saying as much since I've been in Vegas, but I know I can do better, & it's driving me nuts that I'm under-performing. (Hence I was up & working at 6am this morning).

[tikay]

In the short term, the World Cup has hurt the European sites (as budgeted & Forecast), but the likes of Party, Boyle, 888, Ladbrokes & i-Poker have all recorded serious revenue reductions from their poker rooms. The decline at Ladbrokes has been really sharp, they seem to have lost their way somewhere.

Is there a danger a poker room could go 'pop' at some time, literally shut down overnight with no warning (to most) and ppl could lose the lot?

Yes, of course.

Think how awfully Trillion handled things.

I've yet to tell the true horrific take of how disgracefully Aqua (with i-Poker's full knowledge) behaved towards blonde. Froze the accounts of players who had five figure sums on Deposit, & refused to pay them out. Thats what they did! I ended up ringing all of these players & offering them my personal guarantee that they'd be paid come what may. For several weeks I was standing as a personal guarator for a massive sum, ugh. And that story is not over yet. Sums are still owed, & blonde are being held to ransom.

Stick to names you can trust, High-Street names, & you'll be fine. Go to these daft Rooms who tempt you with daft (unsustainable) Rakeback numbers, & you run a big risk. And avoid any i-Poker skin would be my personal view, too. You have no idea how murky it all is.