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>> 888 has risen through the poker rankings to overtake Party Poker for the ?rst time, but forthcoming changes to the latter’s offering could shake things up again Andy Roocroft reports
SHAKING UP POKER
but when you are third or fourth it is very difficult to make that switch.” 888’s poker offering has undergone a great number of other changes over the years with the biggest being the development of a simpler user interface. Another was the rebrand from Paci?c Poker to 888Poker as part of a successful marketing campaign led by ambassador and Australia cricket legend Shane Warne. 888 also owns the majority of its marketing activity and is fully in charge of its network. But what of bwin.party and PartyPoker? Its poker decline is as much a part of the tale as 888's success with bwin.party showing a 37% drop in both active players and revenue in Q1. According to Ben Fried, a partner at Gaming Edge Associates, 2011’s bwin.party merger has taken up a lot of management time and its poker product has lacked investment in recent times, as opposed to 888, which has undergone a signi?cant change in the last three years. In 2012 bwin.party announced it was merging liquidity across its two poker platforms and successfully transferred bwin's poker players from Ongame onto the PartyPoker platform in December. The aim stated at the time was to reverse declining
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n 2010, 888’s poker offering – then known as Paci?c Poker – was in a difficult position, lagging way down the Pokerscout rankings in 15th place. In the same year, the Londonlisted ?rm’s pro?ts before tax fell by 56% from $36.4m to $15.1m, explained largely by the poor performance of its poker product. At that time, few onlookers would have predicted the impressive turnaround of 888Poker which in June rose to fourth in Pokerscout’s online poker traffic rankings, overtaking PartyPoker for the ?rst time. In addition, 888 has seen its poker revenue increase from $11m in Q1 2011 to $24m in Q1 2013. These changes have not occurred overnight. 888 has taken both gutsy and simple moves to improve its poker offering. A well-documented development was its move to focus on recreational players. Ex-888 CEO Gigi Levy told eGaming Review putting “the casual, non-pro player at the centre of the ecosystem” was one of the operator’s “most successful decisions”. “The company understood that it’s these players who keep the ecosystem alive and not the pros who drain money out of the system. This new approach resulted in many changes, ranging from a revised loyalty programmes all the way to the company’s affiliate deals and which type of players it brought in,” he says. The move to focus on a different target audience wasn’t taken lightly, according to 888’s CEO Brian Mattingley. “When we changed our accent into [going after] more recreational players we were about 14th or 15th [in the poker rankings],” he said. “You can be brave when you are in that position,
“WHEN WE CHANGED OUR ACCENT INTO [GOING AFTER] MORE RECREATIONAL PLAYERS WE WERE ABOUT 14TH OR 15TH [IN THE POKER RANKINGS]. YOU CAN BE BRAVE WHEN YOU ARE IN THAT POSITION”
Brian Mattingley, CEO, 888
revenues and to improve poker ecology. Judging by ?gures for the ?rst quarter of the year, it is currently struggling to meet the ?rst objective after a 37% year-on-year decline in poker revenues. However, PartyPoker may well come back stronger than ever given the long-awaited rebrand and a total relaunch of its software due in August. In a move to change the poker room’s ecosystem and focus on recreational players, PartyPoker’s new software is set to integrate social features for the first time. And a significant marketing spend is expected to follow the relaunch of its software. While 888 can revel in its current success, the company will know this is no time to rest on its laurels. As Gigi Levy says: “PartyPoker possesses an amazing brand, database and significant know-how in the poker market. I am sure we have not seen the last of it and that it will soon return to growth.”
www.egrmagazine.com
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