Will .Poker Take Off ?

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Christopher Hofman from European Domain Centre interviewed Roland LaPlante and Brett Samuels from Afilias on the eve of .Poker going live.

Brett Samuels listed a number of high profile brands among early stage registrants including basically any Vegas casino on The Strip such as MGM and Treasure Island, general betting sites and news sites such as PokerNews.

Here is an overview:

Casinos: Bally’s, Borgata, Caesars Palace, Mirage, Monte Carlo, etc.

Online gaming sites: Bovada, Fulltilt, Grosvenor, World Series Poker, etc.

Communities: PocketFives

News/Blogs: PokerNews, Boyle Sports Poker

From the interview:

So why should you go for a .poker domain name?

Roland says that “.poker is all about branding and memorability in a very competitive business. It’s time to understand that .com says nothing about your brand. It’s a random term. This is a unique opportunity to get a much more effective marketing address”.

In addition to talking to Afilias, Christopher also spoke with a former employee of the largest gambling site in Denmark. It will be interesting to see if affiliates take to .poker domains. While the U.S. market is only active in three states, the European market is vibrant.

Read the full article here

Comments

  1. Brad Mugford says

    “Will .Poker Take Off ?”

    Nope. As usual most registrations are just for brand protection reasons and are unlikely to be used as stand alone websites.

    Brad

  3. RaTHeaD says

    i think it’s primary use would be for online poker sites and for an online poker site to be truly successful it needs to have hundreds of thousands of players which of course severely limits the number of viable sites and the amount of domains that would be needed. i don’t see it taking off even if it is used at all.

    • Raymond Hackney says

      I think you are spot on. There are not enough networks out there with liquidity, the big sites are not rebranding.

      .Bet may be the one that catches on a bit.

  4. Christopher Hofman says

    Thanks for sharing my post, Raymond.

    Surely the big networks won’t rebrand (they will be the last ones), but there are plenty of other participants in the poker industry – from chips manufacturers to tv channels, which are looking for better branding.

    Secondly, there are new tournaments and events constantly which need a great domain name.

    Thirdly, if online poker is liberalized again in the US, there surely will be a second boom with new market entrants. Gambling crazy new markets such as China also use the term poker.

    The launch today is about brand protection and stocking great domains for future, still unplanned, use

    • Raymond Hackney says

      Thanks for commenting Christopher, there are some really great ones that as a person who plays poker I would love to have. Online.poker and Tournament.Poker. I imagine those prices will be very high.