Online Gambling: How the Big Companies are Cashing In
With the United Kingdom taking the lead with online poker regulation, many companies are cashing in on the gaming boom. Poker and gaming in Europe are growth businesses the way they were in the U.S. up until last October. Some big companies have taken notice of the profits that the industry is producing, and now that doing business within the industry is more secure, poker and betting is popping up in some new places.
AOL UK has just announced that they will allow sports betting to their customers. The numbers will be run through a German online lottery and sports betting company. They will offer it to U.K. patrons first, at the end of this month, and then they hope to spread it to other European countries soon afterward. AOL has been running a lottery through the German company since 2003, but the sports betting industry in Europe is a huge market. This is a result of Yahoo UK & Ireland entering the online poker market a few months ago. Yahoo was the first online giant to provide poker to its vast database of customers.
These companies have an advantage over other startup gaming companies because they already have access to the online market. They have access to a large number of poker players that they can reach directly. Depending on how aggressive these big companies get with their marketing, there could be a real shift in the industry if they can entice enough players away from the existing casinos and poker rooms.
Other big-name companies are rumored to have an interest in the industry. Giants like Sony, Apple, Time Warner and Universal are all paying close attention to the U.K. gaming market and a possible regulated online industry in the States. The huge Asian market that online gaming is about to tap into is one of the reasons that these big companies are looking to get involved in the industry now. Let’s hope the competition leads to better advantages for the players in the future.