Steve Cook, European Managing Director from poker software developers Tribeca Tables, gives his expert views on what we can expect in 2006 for poker vendors and operators.
[ 1 2 3 4 ] - Continued from Part I.
Already in the poker network sector, we are seeing some existing brands switching providers or breaking away and going it alone. Last year Betfair announced that they had purchased online poker site Poker Champs along with its Danish software provider Aglet as they plan to leave the Crypto network in 2006. Expekt Poker also left the Prima network to join a new Swedish Tain platform, which apparently is a hybrid of the existing Chartwell/Mircopower platform. We may see other larger brands going it alone. However poker networks offer a secure environment and the opportunity for brands to build a poker business that they could not possibly achieve themselves. Creating liquidity is a huge acquisition cost and acquiring poker knowledge takes years of experience. Poker is a completely different animal to casino and sport betting products. A few brands have learnt painful lessons about the cost of trying to build a poker business on their own and under-estimate the nature of the poker model entirely.
Yet if some industry experts believe the poker space is already saturated,
just exactly where are all the new players going to come from? Perhaps
we will see the larger brands such as Party Poker, Pokerstars, Paradise
Poker, Ultimate Bet lose market share. Most unlikely! But to be a
further thorn in the side of the new start-ups, the larger poker networks
are set to increase their size and compete on a level playing field
with some of the afore mentioned brands. Therefore expansion must
come from new customers as well as new countries.
But who will be the losers? As we have seen there has been a lot of
volatility with some brands switching providers or moving from smaller
networks to larger ones. This will have an impact on the smaller networks
as sustaining liquidity and retention becomes a constant challenge.
So we will likely see a real shake up, as brands either strike out
on their own or join larger networks that have forward momentum. The
gap between the small and large networks will increase considerably
over the next 12 months. Currently there are around four very strong
poker networks whilst around a dozen smaller ones will be fighting
to keep pace. The problem is that once brands start leaving a network,
it is not easy to recover the situation and will likely mean many
of the small-medium size network providers will struggle still further,
merge or perhaps disappear! There are also a number of networks that
are actually owner/operators promoting their own poker brands. This
must be a direct conflict of interests with some of their partners
trying to build their poker businesses. Therefore the choice of network
partner is becoming limited; in terms of those that will represent
your best interests, having enough liquidity and establishing a leading
network to compete against the major brands.
[ 1 2 3 4 ] - This article continues with Part III.
Steve Cook is the Managing Director of Tribeca Tables Europe, Limited, registered in the Channel Island of Alderney. They are the world's first and largest independent network of ePoker brands and committed to providing innovative and reliable software solutions to clients exclusively in the arena of ePoker.