Archive for the ‘english’ category

How to survive regulation’s natural selection 3

Thursday May 20th, 2010 at 4:42 pm

With an increasing number of European countries regulating their online gaming sectors there is little doubt that only a few major brands will survive and thrive in these new regulated markets.

As a Frenchman and founder and chief executive of Chilipoker.com, I am in the process of applying for a licence in France and follow closely what is happening in my home country at the moment.

Once the market is open in June, French players will be offered a choice between pure-play operators and the gaming sites of major media/communications groups. Chilipoker is a medium-sized company that will operate its .fr poker site in partnership with Iliad-Free, the second biggest internet service provider in France.

But what we won’t be able to do is compete with the likes of PokerStars, Bwin or PartyGaming. Therefore, the challenge we have to address is: how do we make sure we build a strong business that can survive the inevitable marketing war that is going to be unleashed and offer our players the best possible egaming product in a regulated environment.

At the moment, the majority of the B2B deals being signed feature suppliers offering their technology with the gaming sites launched under the client’s brand. Personally I believe these sites should be launched with the gaming firm’s brand, and this is what we have done by launching Chilipoker in Ireland with Setanta and in France with Iliad-Free. This way we take on all the marketing, CRM and security tasks for these partners and at the same time build up our brand across different markets.

Major operators such as PokerStars aren’t going to offer B2B services, but for a company like Chilipoker it makes sense, since we already have the content, events (WPT in Marrakech, Deepstack Open across Europe) and assets that can be pooled and utilised across different countries. In this way we offer our expertise and content to our partners while not presenting an existential threat to them because we are not as big as Bwin, PartyGaming or PokerStars.

I believe a company like Chilipoker will grow in regulated markets by licensing its gaming brand and building up a network of ventures launched with strategic partners who provide their support and reach across different markets. This is what 888 has done recently with Endemol Italy, what we have done in Ireland and France and we are currently working on agreements in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. It is also what travel specialist Expedia did in France with the national train operator SNCF and it has become the country’s leader in online travel.

For Chilipoker, such a strategy will enable us to build a strong international gaming brand and network and carve out our place in regulated markets.

Popularity: 26% [?]

chilipoker, english, in english

Chilipoker is landing at Las Vegas 1

Wednesday October 28th, 2009 at 5:04 pm

“Chilipoker.com becomes the official partner of GO Voyages for its new direct line from Paris to Las-Vegas”

Press release

Malta, 28 October 2009

The Malta-based company, which is celebrating its 3rd birthday, has signed a partnership agreement with GO Voyages to become the official partner for its new direct line from Paris to Las Vegas, operated by XL Airways, which will take off on 23 May 2010.

There will be twice weekly flights departing from Paris Charles de Gaulle, on Thursdays and Sundays, leaving room for short trips of 3 or 4 days as well as stays of a week, 10 days or longer. The departure and arrival timetables mean that travellers from all over Europe can be transported, and Paris will be established as a direct gateway to Las Vegas.

As well as innovating with this exclusive partnership, Chilipoker.com is installing a free VIP counter in Las Vegas for all its European customers. This will offer a dedicated multilingual team in charge of helping tourists and poker players prepare their stays in Las Vegas, especially with reservations for restaurants, shows or limousines, or visits to the surroundings of Vegas, etc.

“Las Vegas is one of those destinations people dream of, but which appear inaccessible. As an online poker site we felt it appropriate to offer an answer to these dreams by offering all non-English speaking Europeans, and in particular the French, a chance to enjoy a unique experience,” states Alexandre Dreyfus, the French founder of Chilipoker.com.

“We hope that with the future regulation of the online gaming market in France, which is set to become effective before 23 May 2010, Chilipoker can occupy a significant place in this new market. From now on, Las Vegas will form an integral part of our marketing strategy in Europe for 2010.”

To celebrate this agreement, Chilipoker will refund 75 Euros to all Chilipoker.com account holders for each ticket* reserved between 15 November and 31 December 2009.

“In this way Chilipoker.com intends to assert itself as a partner for the “poker destination” of Las Vegas and in particular for the French community, as we have already been for 2 years in Marrakesh. It will mean an investment of several hundred thousand dollars for us,” explains the director.

* the full terms of this refund and information about this partnership are already available in on the website:

http://www.chilipoker.com/paris-las-vegas.html

Popularity: 5% [?]

english

September’s schedule: travel, travel, travel 3

Tuesday September 29th, 2009 at 5:56 pm

Thursday 24th Sept. 7.30pm

It’s the end of my working day, which began with a flood in our offices.  Quick, I have to write a ‘post’ on my blog before I lose the motivation I had when I was setting it up.  What an idea to set up a blog?!  It really is my wish to inform people about the gambling industry, because I believe that very few participants really know this subject.  The problem is that I’m a company director (I’m in charge of all the money), which consumes a lot of my time.

I have an exciting career, a passionate team and a business project which has no limits for the next 5 years, so I can’t complain.  But I travel a lot.  Take September for example:  I went to Cannes (PPT), to Paris (twice), Budapest, Copenhagen, Barcelona, London (twice), and Marakech (for the WPT). I took 17 flights between the 1st and 30th September.

That’s what online gaming is all about: conferences, events and meetings all over the world.

In Budapest: (3 days), Chilipoker had a stand at the affiliation event.  We have been present 4 times a year (Amsterdam, London, Barcelona and Budapest) for the past 3 years.  We had a team of 3 staff (Hungarian, English and French) who represented our affiliation programme: ShareTheChilli.com. It was an opportunity to meet our affiliates and discover new ones.  Today we work with almost 1,600 affiliates across the world, who promote Chilipoker and will soon be promoting our new products.

Copenhagen (4 days); this was the online gaming (B2B) annual mass with two events:

- EiGexpo.com which brings together all industry suppliers (games platforms, payment solutions, etc…) / It’s an opportunity to get an update on the progress made during the year (the other mass is in London, at the end of January) by our partners and to discover new ones.  For example, we spent (Severin (Head of Poker) and myself) an entire afternoon with our supplier and our friends from Playtech, finding out about new technologies that Chilipoker can offer to its clients in the next 6 months.  Some nice surprises are in store

- World Poker Congress 2009: is a round of online poker conferences, Chilipoker has been the official sponsor since 2007 (Malta, Budapest and now Copenhagen).  Different subjects were broached by participants, in particular about the future of online poker, its strengths, the danger of rakeback, etc …  I had the opportunity to take part in a ‘CEO Panel’ with Jim Ryan (CEO of Partygaming), Steve Lipscomb (CEO of WPT, our partner) and Malcolm Graham (CEO of PKR).  My English isn’t good enough to allow me to get into any long debates, so I answered the questions that I was asked and explained that our partnership with Iliad-Free was the first of its kind in Europe, and that there was much more to come from us.

London (2 days): a quick visit to WSOPE to help out my MadeInPoker.com teams, who produce a daily video newspaper, as well as 2 other meetings that I can’t go into

Marrakech: after having missed my connecting flight (storms in Barcelona) – I had a 6 hour meeting to organise our WPT Marrakech.  This poker party, as I choose to describe it, started off rather well.  Organisation is well underway, we have already sold almost 250 paid places (out of a maximum of 350) and we are preparing interesting evenings, buggy excursions, etc… Poker players who come to Marrakech should be delighted, because it’s not just a poker tournament, but a whole event.

Paris: a half-day to meet journalists (NouvelObs who are doing a story on online gaming), etc….

Hallelujah, I‘ll be staying for one week in Malta to work alongside my teams, before returning to Paris for a conference on sport and Parisian sports people (at the National Assembly, 30 September), where I will be a speaker.  Then I will fly off to London again, accompanied by a French TV crew (news team), to support Liz Lieu who will be playing the EPT.

That’s all, for now.  My next post, which will be next weekend, I hope – will be an important topic: the end of the golden age of online gaming….Watch this space.

Popularity: 8% [?]

english, inside

The poker ecosystem: TV, online gaming and casinos 2

Tuesday September 29th, 2009 at 5:54 pm

I’m often asked by journalists whether online gaming is (unfair?) competition for French casinos.  I don’t think so.  In fact, every poker player has a cycle of discovery and online gaming is part of the ecosysystem of poker in France. A lambda player will discover the game at a friend’s house or on TV (first with Patrick Bruel on Canal (like Sky in UK) , but now on most digital channels), then get acquainted with the game, probably for free, and will begin to play on the internet.

What’s more, only online poker sites (legal or not, that’s another topic) offer internet users the possibility to play for free or for a few cents!  It’s the only way to learn without getting bled dry. The only way to take lessons, to understand the rules, to see videos, to watch games live.

There are also associations in this ecosystem which play a crucial role.  They organise free or paid games, but they are always private games, often to add to the glitz of poker.  Let us not forget the magazines and the internet sites who report news from the poker world.

Today, in French casinos, the minimum ‘stake’ amount is generally €200, and for bets it’s €2.  And the casino deducts 4% (uncapped / with approximately 42% tax).  It’s expensive but often justified as ‘live’ poker has a cost (human cost, rent, etc …), whereas virtual poker is clearly cheaper.

After 5 years in online poker, and having analysed the French market in particular, I think that there wouldn’t be poker in French casinos, if online poker hadn’t been so successful.  There isn’t any competition between a casino and an online poker site.  They complement each other – even need each other.  France now has its own poker culture.

What’s really abnormal is that French casinos must meet regulations and this delays their chance at transposing something they practice in their establishments onto the Net, (unlike the French mainly state-owned lottery provider: la Française de Jeux).

However, yesterday le Groupe Tranchant revealed that it wanted to tackle illegal sites.  I can only understand that; the group is defending its own interests, even if the definition of legality is completely relative.  Under what criteria is a site present on the French territory?  Accepting clients isn’t illegal.  However, promoting in the French market could be?  What is promotion?  Who deems it as such?  This all still remains vague and probably unfair.

If French casinos put poker sites into jeopardy, I think they would be shooting themselves in the foot. Today, casinos have more to gain from a stronger poker market than they do if the situation was the other way around.  Online gaming is not the main cause of French casinos’ fall in revenue – it’s a global trend. You have to deal with it and adapt.

One thing is for sure; French regulation must be implemented as soon as possible so as to enable all operators to be on an equal footing.

In the meantime, my company Chilipoker, which has more than 100,000 clients in 30 or so countries, can’t wait for this regulation to come out.  We have made the decision not to advertise in France, at the request of the government.  We are not present in French poker magazines, we do not sponsor French players, we don’t have any links with French associations, we don’t organise free tournaments on French soil.  That is my choice; probably a naïve one, however, I communicate through the media, as a French entrepreneur, to teach people about the online gambling industry.

To compensate for this naiveté, in February 2009, we have signed a partnership with Groupe Iliad (Free) to be able to promote our services (sports betting and poker) and open up our market to their base of 4.3 million French households (our estimation is that Free currently represents 40% of online poker players – young people, city dwellers, IT enthusiasts,….).  This is to try and catch up on ourselves. The road ahead is long but most importantly, we continuously endevour to satisfy our clients.

Popularity: 9% [?]

english, in english, inside