An affiliate program is to be added over the summer; Yahoo will be keen to build a big affiliate network for the poker

As far as I know Yahoo doesn’t have Affiliate programs as opposed to the leading poker rooms of the online poker market (Pacific Poker, Full Tilt, Party Poker etc). These poker rooms get a lot of money from their affliates program. This brings up the question if Yahoo would be able to rely on its brand only and beat its competitors without exploiting the large income from affiliates.

I started writing a comment on my company’s blog and ended up writing an essay, so figured it would be better as a follow up post.

While the original posting was brief, it opens up discussion for several elements. Having worked with an online-poker related company I am indeed biased, but I have outlined several key perspectives from an attempted impartial standpoint.

1: Contradictory: The main focus I’m hearing is that in 04′ Google and Yahoo pulled gambling ads, and that Yahoo is now flip-flopping on their stance. I think the reason for that pulling gets complicated and perhaps meshed in with some clever PR moves. If I recall correctly they both positioned the pulling along the lines of ‘being society focused’ and ‘doing what’s right for the online community’ etc. There was without doubt pressure from the FCC and other bodies to pull the ads and at some point they really did not have a choice if they wanted to keep moving forward. With that said, was it really their intrinsic desire to pull the ads, or a convenient and compliant reaction to outside pressures. I’m not saying at all that they wouldn’t have pulled on their own, perhaps they would have, but back to the argument that this move is contradictory primarily due to their position in 04′: I’m not 100% convinced.

2: Controversial Move: In the online poker sphere, Yahoo is not the first US based company to have an initial position against gaming and then introduce it overseas. Paypal back in early 2000’s offered payment services between players and online gaming sites. At some point though they pulled all services as they didn’t feel it represented their brand. (This could have been due to outside pressures, or their internal business motives). Last summer, however, Paypal introduced payment services for online gambling exclusively for players not living in the US. Is this move contradictory as well or is it a smart financial action while completely abiding by domestic laws? Back to the discussion that this Yahoo move is controversial, I ask why should it be controversial? Online poker is something that will not go away. Perhaps with Yahoo in the game, albeit overseas, they will hold their gaming integrity to a higher standard than some other sites and perhaps offer a safer solution for players. The argument shouldn’t be based on if this is right or wrong, that debate will go on for decades, but should be based on how we can develop the most ethical, accountable, and safest system for this poker phenomenon.

3. Media Attention: There was a brief line that noted how the media will be salivating over the first story where someone loses their college tuition. This upsets me for two reasons:

First, it is extremely unfortunate when a poker player plays beyond their means or skill lever and has unfortunate results; results that may have an impact on their family or financial situation. Gambling addiction CAN be a very serious problem. We need to be concentrating on how to provide education for responsible gaming. We need systems that help detect potential problematic behavior and intervention efforts to prevent it from developing.

Second, I feel the media has played a huge role in the negative perception of online poker. You notice the articles focus on how Steve maxed out his credit cards, or Jill stole from her grandma to pay off the car she lost. Yes, these extreme cases happen, just like with anything that develops into a problem. But it represents a micro portion of the online poker community. We don’t hear too many stories of how poker developed Jason’s math skills or taught Kevin financial management, but examples like these are very prevalent.

4. Will it Work: Putting all of these socio-political discussions aside, will Yahoo be successful with their efforts; Looking strictly from a business and online poker standpoint? I have mixed thoughts that lean toward the negative. One thing to understand is that this initial platform will ONLY be available to non-US players. The United States makes up over 80% of the online poker market, so my first major concern is with critical mass. With online poker, you have to critical mass; a site like Poker Stars has over 60,000 player on at any given moment (and at peak times over 90,000). This allows players to have access to available games at their pleasure. Yahoo may face some major issues here as currently they will only have grabs at 20% of the online poker community, many of which are already are happy with a handful of established sites. Differentiation in the online poker sphere is very difficult. Assuming you have software that is of equal quality, and you magically get some players wagering so it’s not a ghost town, attracting new players from others sites is a major challenge.

With that said, Yahoo doe’s have a globally established brand, and can possibly cross sell to it’s current UK user base. This may very well be successful, especially if they can target users that are interested in poker but have not yet tried online poker. These users may be more likely to lose their online poker virginity to a trusted name like Yahoo.

The online poker market will continue to grow, IMO, not as rapid as it did between 2003 and 2006, but it still is one of the hottest things around. Who knows, maybe Yahoo will pave the way for a legalized online platform in the United States. The day that comes we will see another explosion in online poker; monumentally bigger than the last five years.

All play will be through St Minver as you need all players aggregated through the network all Yahoo do is provide the means to access that network

Phil

Gambling is not taxed to the player only to the companies so why should it bother us, if the government didn’t get tax this way it would have to come from somewhere.

In Europe alcoholism and gambling addiction aren’t viewed as diseases, they’re simply bad choices one might make. That’s a big difference between the typical American, Alcoholics Anonymous-inspired ethic. If a European loses his mortgage at the poker table, he views it as his fault. Americans are much more likely to blame Yahoo for taking advantage of their “disease”, though I like to think that even here most people take responsibility for their own actions and the image to the contrary is largely due to a sample bias caused by sensationalist media.

So I really don’t anticipate too much trouble. They also aren’t the first American corporation to start an online gaming site aimed solely at foreign players, but I think all of the others were owned by casino operators.

This whole issue is absolutely infuriating to me… and what is gambling anyways? Any idiot can get a brokerage account and dump his life savings into a penny stock… but God forbid we allow someone to bet $10 on the Suns/Spurs.

Because it was just sitting there, you know, waiting.

And: I am glad I am not allowed to partake, because I probably would, and then I probably would again, and then probably again. And, well…

As for Yahoo–from a marketing and PR perspective 1.) dumb, unnecessary move. 2.) will keep PR people busy tho. so it could be a strategy from a consulting partner looking for follow-on work or, 3.) Maybe they’re trying to scare Microsoft away for good.

1st comment…nice dude!

— Yahoo taking my money rather than partypoker ..etc..

-RB

The local authorities in many UK cities simply saw the ’supercasino’ licence as a licence to print money in their backyard , that’s why the competition for it was so fierce, the opposition came from the usual suspects opposed to gambling who certainly managed to influence the political decision to limit the number of UK ’supercasino’ licences awarded to one.

Those interests could just as easilly turn on Yahoo and probably will if they see it as an opportunity of getting free publicity for their cause – ‘BISHOP BASHES YAHOO’, etc. ‘ headlines which of course wouldnt get any coverage here…:)

As for: “The service is provided through a partner, St Minver, but the game play occurs on the Yahoo site.”

While I can’t speak for game play because I wasn’t able to register, Yahoo Poker’s registration definitely takes place on St. Minver’s website: https://poker.s...tion/login.html.

Because Yahoo’s not actually operating the poker “casino”, I agree that this is probably an experiment. I’ve heard reports of UK divisions of other major US media companies toying with doing the same.

I’m curious to know how autonomous the UK/IE division of Yahoo operates from the US parent. Regardless, I think the implications for Yahoo’s overall brand will be the same, whether you believe this particular foray will bite them or not. It certainly bit the “Yahoo” brand when Yahoo China was accused of helping the Chinese government imprison and torture political dissident Wang Xiaoning.

網上賭博，當然玩過，大多幾十塊美金上落，不熟不玩，贏了便走，貪字得過貧，留戀不得，尤其是賭網何其多，稍不謹慎選擇便直墮陷阱之中，與人無尤。不過當作為互聯網龍頭老大之一二…