Tag: gambling

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eGaming Review tells story of how online gambling domains have advantage over offline addresses

gambling

The most recent “domain name” story on Calvin Ayre which discussed the sale of Poker.com.au for $100,000, pointed to an article over at eGaming Review that described how online gambling websites have the definite advantage over offline destinations like Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

All things being equal, when you look at a gambling website with content and games, what gives one online gambling site the advantage over another?

Having the right web adress.

The story titled “It’s all in the name” opens by noting the big-ticket sales in 2010 of Slots.com and Poker.org.  Slots.com sold for $5.5 million, while Poker.org sold for $1 million.

Nora Nanayakkara, the author of the eGaming Review story, digs into gambling.com (which is up for sale at Sedo) and other gambling domains, and makes a number of good points.

From the SEO perspective, she writes: “Our own research shows that one-in-six searches come from direct navigation and that when it comes to Gambling.com the domain offers great SEO benefits. It currently sits at the number one and two spots in Google’s own rankings and since the term “gambling” is searched around 1.1 million times a month, the potential for this to scale even further could be much greater.”

She brings up branding, development, domain sales, visibility, advertising revenues, lead generation, recognition, and several other ways companies are benefiting from going online with category-killing names.

Unlike some stories riddled with errors that are written by people outside of the domain industry, the eGaming Review story is a good, quick read. 

Read more about the rewards of investing in a premium domain name.

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Will the sale of Gambling.com even come close to $20MM (its previous sale price)?

online gambling

Fusible.com was the first blog in the Domain industry to report about the auction of Gambling.com, shortly after reading a tweet sent through Calvin Ayre’s web site announcing Media Corp had retained Sedo to sell Gambling.com. 

Hours earlier, Media Corp had issued a press release through BusinessWire: ‘Whilst the Group has received a number of very significant indicative offers for www.gambling.com, the Board believes that a formal auction process with the World’s leading domain name broker will achieve the best possible outcome and valuation as Sedo is uniquely positioned to present the domain to global gambling brands and other qualified buyers.’

Purely a Domain Sale?

Gambling.com, if you recall, sold for nearly $20 million in 2005.  However, the sale wasn’t purely a domain sale. 

According to Sedo back in 2005: ‘The sale of Gambling.com turned heads when it hit the multi-million dollar mark and sold for 20 million dollars.  Also included in the sale were benefits of a direct mail database and affiliate program connections.’

In 2010, will Gambling.com even close to its multi-million dollar sales price from 2005? 

Back in 2005, Casinomeister wrote about the sale.

“Gambling.com is the number 1 listing on google.com for “Gambling” search and has over 500 other internet and affiliate sites linking to Gambling.com globally. It also has extensive expertise in direct mailing and has built a double opt-in database of over 200,000 members.”

Times have changed.  Gambling.com is no longer the number 1 listing.  Though type in traffic is always a nice perk, long term businesses want to own the search engines.

What are people saying?

Over at Gambling Portal Webmasters Association, the site that was originally tapped to auction Slots.com, members are a bit skeptical that Gambling.com will get anywhere near that $20 million price tag.  Here’s a look at some of the comments:

Christoff says, “Superb domain but will never get $20m for it”
 
Brean78 says, “For what its worth, I think Gambling.com has suffered from a bit of an identity crisis for a while now. It appears to be heavily focused on sport (for traffic I presume), but I don’t know too many people that associate gambling with sports betting.”
 
Graham says, “20 million?? I just don’t see this as good of a domain as something like onlinecasinos.com, sportsbetting.com, casinos.com, etc. where the people are coming to the site knowing exactly what they want to do. Gambling is too broad and I don’t think would convert that great, nor have the player value that some other terms might carry.”
 
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Kentucky internet gambling case: Court date scheduled for December 6

courthouse

For those interested in the Kentucky internet gambling case that began in September 2008, in which the state of Kentucky tried seizing 141 domain names of gambling sites, a new court date has been scheduled for December 6, 2010. 

As CasinoAdvisor reports: ‘The case is back in the court of Judge Thomas Wingate, who was the original judge that ruled that Kentucky was legally able to exert jurisdiction over the specified domain names, even though all the domains are owned and operated outside of the Commonwealth.’

While there are 141 domain names involved in the case, the state’s attorneys in an attempt to identify the owners of the domains, wants to divide up the domain names into groups. 

According to CasinoAdvisor, the state’s attorney’s submitted the following before the court: ‘In order to effectively manage the large number of sites, the Commonwealth suggests that the determination of identification and ownership of sites occur in groups. The Commonwealth requests that the initial group consist of playersonly.com, sportsbook.com, sportsinteraction.com, mysportsbook.com, and linesmaker.com.’

Who knows whether this case will ever end. 

What do you think of this latest submission by the state’s attorneys?

See the original list of the defendants’ 141 domain names, which includes Fulltiltpoker.com, Goldenpalace.com, Bodoglife.com and Pokerstars.com (just to name a few).

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Calvin Ayre: ‘Slots.com purchase is one of the best deals I’ve ever made’

calvin ayre

Billionaires have been known to blog, but it’s quite rare that billionaires blog as often as Calvin Ayre who averages about 3 to 4 stories per month on his online gambling news site at CalvinAyre.com. 

What’s even more rare, is for billionaires to blog about domain names.  But that’s just what Calvin Ayre did this week in a story entitled: Slots.com purchase is one of the best deals I’ve ever made.

Have you been wondering whether Calvin Ayre regrets paying $5.5 million earlier this year for the Slots.com domain name?

Not a chance, Calvin writes: “I’m sure a lot of people thought I was off my rocker when they first heard that Bodog Brand had purchased the Slots.com domain at auction for $5.5m in May of this year. After they learned the deal had gone down while I was enjoying a drink at London’s L’Atelier restaurant, they probably thought I was wasted, too. And while I might have been enjoying a bevvie or two (or three, etc.) at the moment I pulled the trigger, I have yet to experience a single shred of ‘morning after’ regret.”

Read more about Calvin Ayre’s thoughts on the Slots.com purchase.