h1

Global Financial Crisis: It’s effect on online poker

December 18, 2009

It’s an infection that is difficult to cure. It is one disease that the whole world would like to avoid but sadly, the world could never get away from it. It’s global financial crisis. It affected almost everything in the world. All businesses and industries have been suffering from this – even on online poker.

Online poker has been affected by the crisis too. Where people used to play to have fun and while away the time. Although players has been playing it with caution not to put their money down the drain, but they are more careful of it this time. This would mean that there are less people playing poker than the ordinary. And it’s understood that in online poker, when there are lesser people in a poker table, there would be less money to earn.

With the people busy with having jobs to make money and would have less time for online poker, the online gambling industry would be the one in the losing end.

h1

Online gambling’s influence to students rise

December 10, 2009

More and more students have been asking for help, support and guidance when their involvement to online gambling goes way out of hand.

According to GamCare Chief Executive Andy McLellan, the students’ problems and involvement on online gambling is probably an effect of the mentality that the students are living alone, on their own, and knows almost nobody to help them manage their accounts. Also, since the students have no confidant, they face their problems through joining or playing online gambling games.

This case could greatly affect the ongoing hearing for the legalization of online poker. This would become the opposition’s greatest rebuttal and the proponents’ greatest fear. Knowing that these cases exist, it can spread throughout almost everywhere. It may have just appeared as a statistics or estimation of one certain university or in one state, but to say that this claim is just a generalization is not a good enough excuse. Since this exists, this would mean that indeed online gambling could affect the youth one way or another.

h1

Updates on US’ fight for online gambling legalization

December 5, 2009

After a few months of fighting for online gambling legalization, the first step to it has been taken although no further significant results came up.

The first hearing was done. Attended by both the proponents of the legalization and the opposition have had their say on the said case. And without any further moves, the hearing stayed as that when the 1-hour-30-minutes hearing was over.

According to the news, the propositions being stated during the hearing were merely general and not really going into specific details of the Reasonable Prudence in Regulation Act and the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act.

The most pressing concern that the opposition raised about online gambling legalization is its effects on the youth and how far would they go in order to monitor them.

The proponents, on the other hand, bested the oppositions say by stating that the best way to stop illegal acts in online gambling is to legalize it because in legalization comes regulation.

Either ways, both parties have stated a good point, although one is stronger than the other. It would be better though if both parties would go straight to the specific problems and concerns than go beat around the bush.

h1

Facebook and Online Poker

December 3, 2009

Poker is slowly evolving – their venues, that is. What used to be played inside a poker room turned online, and what used to be online poker played in online poker rooms in online casino is now on a social networking site.
Facebook is today’s most popular.

When speaking about playing poker online people generally refer to playing at an online poker room or at online casino that offer poker as one of the gaming options. Well for a little while now poker is available to be played not online at those virtual venues but as well as the most used social network of all: Facebook.

The online social networking site has many different applications and several of them involve gaming. Poker is becoming more and more of a popular application with so many Facebook members playing the game at any given time on the web there is quite a bit of hype about the games that are offered.

There are several reasons that this is great marketing for the makers of the game. First of all, the exposure is wonderful and there are so many people telling one another about the game that it is a constant stream of new players at all times.

Secondly, once people love the Facebook version of the game it is very likely that they will attempt going to an online casino to try some online poker and play for cash making sure that the casinos earn money.

The referral system is great as well. It is sure that this game converts those that play on Facebook into real online players which is good for the players as well as those that are currently playing already.

h1

Advergaming Advantages

November 20, 2009

Combos, 2-in-1’s, and other dynamic and even crazy combinations are now the in thing in almost everything. Food, music, shows, clothes… EVERYTHING. Even in gadgets and features in these certain gadgets are taking a sure-shot combination to success and marketability. And speaking of marketing, there’s this combo trend that combines gaming and advertising. Advergaming!

Advergaming is the concept of promoting a brand or product through online games. This is when a certain product or service posts its advertising campaign (a logo, banner, or a picture of a new product and/or service) at any part of an online game. Some have their banners placed at the side of the game screen, some are flashed while waiting for the game to load, and some are even right exactly at the game play.
But what is the edge of Advergaming, you may ask? The simple fact that internet is now the new media spells all the difference. Television may still be there but not all people have the time to watch. Radio is dying, and so is print. Everything is in technology. And since gaming is one of the most successful online industries, it is best to invest in it.

The online game hype and the need for companies to advertise are some of the roots that gave birth to Advergaming. Advergaming creates brand awareness making it easier to sell a product. With the proper market
research, a company would know who are their target market and would know how to target them.

Say for example a clothing brand. They could advertise in games that includes an avatar dress up, or a shopping game. There, they could put their brand names and can easily encourage the player to try on some of their products.

There are more techniques in Advergaming depending on how companies would take a look at it. It might be on different perspectives, but still they are on one branch of advertising.

h1

Frequent online poker player is youngest WSOP champion

November 16, 2009

A 21-year old man from Michigan, who often plays online poker, just raked in some huge amount of dollars winning the World Series of Poker.

Joe Cada’s pair of nines gave him the win over 46-year old Darvin Moon. Cada just broke the record of being the youngest WSOP champion and took the crown of Peter Eastgate who is 340 days older than him.

Cada, who chose to play poker than study in college, raked in $8.55 million in a close race. His pair of nines were joined with the board of two sevens, a king, and eight, and a deuce that didn’t connect to either Cada and Moon’s cards. This gave Cada the win.

Cada is looking forward to win back-to-back in WSOP, a dream that would probably quite easy to attain. With his youth and being at the peak of his career, Cada had started strong and would be honed earlier and would become a professional live poker player.

Moon won $5.18 million for second place. Unlike Cada who plays more or less a dozen of tournaments at a time in online poker, Moon has never played online poker.

h1

It’s the end of the race for female poker players

November 3, 2009

Showing a strong headstart in CBS’s Amazing Race, Maria and Tiffany finally ended their race around the world. In their Netherlands leg, the poker stars’ stamina and skills were tested.

Even with Brian and Erica being at the last having the difficulty in their bell tower task, but the female poker professionals just had lost their luck in the game in the detour task.

In their detour, they were asked to choose between two of Netherlands’ past time: Farmer’s Game or Farmer’s Dance. In Farmer’s game, the players are asked to wear Netherlands’ clothes, ride a bike, cross a river and play a golf-like game. In the game, they should place the ball in the hole within just 8 strokes. If the strike the ball more than 8 times they’re going to start over the game.

In Farmer’s dance, the players are asked to wear the same clothes, hit a button with a huge mallet and if it reaches the highest possible in the meter, then they would learn a traditional Netherlands dance and would dance it with the troupe. Finally, after the dance, they would eat some fish prepared for them.

Both detour tasks gave Maria and Tiffany a hard time. They first chose Farmer’s dance but found themselves having difficulties in hitting the button with the mallet and took them at most 60 plus hits. They gave up with 30 hits, changed task with Farmer’s game and found themselves struggling once again with the wind blowing hard making it difficult for them to hit the ball further.

They went back to the Farmer’s Dance task but couldn’t make it. They went back to Farmer’s Game task with the wind blowing harder and a bit drizzling. With that, they were the last of the pack and finally quit on the task having them eliminated.

People were expecting the poker tandem to have a strong end since they are used to strategizing in poker. But somehow, the physicality of the game made it difficult for them to move thus eliminated them. The poker community could be both saddened and proud of what Maria and Tiffany showed in the race.

h1

Google Ad’s Restriction on promoting Online Gambling

October 26, 2009

The rise of online gambling has brought a greater demand from players all over the globe. Moreso, software companies have been dwelling on creating more software for online casinos. With this, more and more online casinos exist giving providing higher and tighter competitions.

Since online gambling is a serious business, and since the revenues are high, every online casino would give much effort to market and advertise their sites for more players to visit and play. There are cross-casino advertising, advertising in sites that speaks about online gambling, and the likes. But one entity that these sites cannot advertise in is Google.

Google, being one of the search engines and advertising giants, have certain restrictions on advertising online gambling in their company. Not all online gambling sites can promote and advertise.

According to an article in online-casinos.com, Google have made a couple or more restrictions on advertising and promoting online gambling in Google Ads. It states that these online gambling sites cannot post advertisements in other countries “except those for state license entities in Denmark, Finland, France, Norway, Portugal, Spain, New Zealand, and Sweden”. Other online betting and wagering sites can penetrate through other states and countries so long as they are licensed and authorized to operate.

In Google’s context of online gambling, it is defined as but is not limited to “sports books and sports betting lotteries, bingo, poker, sites that provide tips, odds, and handicapping, software facilitating online casinos and gambling, gambling tutoring online, gambling-related eBooks, ‘play for fun’ gambling or casino games of skill, including sites where the primary purpose is ‘play for fun’ gambling, or affiliate sites with the primary purpose of driving traffic to online gambling sites.”

With certain restrictions, probably gaining a wider market is quite impossible. Although measures are done to pave the way for online gambling to penetrate any market everywhere, it is yet closest to impossible as of the moment.

h1

Online Poker Online Debate

October 19, 2009

Say that a thousand more times and that would be a perfect tongue twister! Excellently, that title serves 2 purposes – the tongue twister being one.

 Online poker, as one of the most talked about topic and issue these days, always set the trend: poker rooms and poker software developed to be better every day; bonuses to entice players are getting bigger; gaming platforms improving from time to time; and even the players getting better at their strategy. There’s no denying that online poker is all around even in intellectual matters.

The news has been filled about them especially on its legalization. From proposal of the said bill to amend internet gambling laws to further developments, the media has been following this matter. And lately, online poker has been set into hot debates in every angle there is. Not that it hasn’t been that debatable and phenomenal in argumentations, but this time, there’s a better avenue to air out concerns and ideas on online poker.

There is now an online poker online debate: a community site which tackles on different issues of the different aspects in online poker. Is poker evil? Should it be legalized? Is it a good business to invest? Is poker a game of luck or a game of skill? All these discussed in one site.

So if you want your views and ideas on online poker be heard, or if you want to rebut existing views that you find quite wrong… then speak.

h1

Two countries, different moves on online gambling

October 16, 2009

The online gambling world has been expanding by the day. Any business online would want to involve themselves in online gaming since it is a fast-rising, high-earning industry. Companies from different sectors would want to invest in online gaming – advertising, marketing, and the likes.

Like companies, different states and countries would want to invest in online gambling. It has been known that online gambling would give huge revenue to a state or country only if it is regulated. However, not all are much pleased to this. Some see gambling as morally wrong, and that is might cause addiction. Opposing forces has been airing an exchange of intellectual rebuttals of the said topic. And like them, two countries have made opposing decisions regarding this matter.

The National Assembly in France recently approved the legislation “to license private companies for online gambling.” With this, a 2% tax would be taken from licensed online gambling companies. Companies who are service online gambling games like poker, horse racing, and sports betting are allowed to operate since their government believes that such are games of skills. Otherwise, if they operate other games of luck, they wouldn’t be given any license to operate.

Contrary to France is China which recently banned foreign participation in China’s market.

The General Administration of Press and Publication, which serves as the online video gaming industry regulator in China, sees China as “a target of considerable potential for many ambitious Internet gambling operators.” With this comes the banning of China to make deals and contracts with foreign companies providing technical support. This move was said “to eliminate unhealthy and illegal online content”, and even games that includes gang violence or those mafia-type games.

 Different their views may be, it would all depend on how legislators see online gaming and online gambling as something that would benefit or ruin the state, country, or the fellowmen themselves.