Party Poker ends relationship with skins

[pokeraddict]

Party Poker has made what many believe is a suicidal move. They have kicked all of the skins off their network. The skins Multi Poker, Intertops, Empire and Eurobet are all now on their own network. Party Poker kicked off 30% of their players that they made 50%+ of their rake. Currently players are not even able to cash out of Eurobet's poker cashier, this money essentially locked.

IMO rooms/networks like Poker Stars, Ultimate Bet, Absolute, Prima and Crpytos have to be jumping for joy. Many players will never trust Party Poker again after this. One can only assume this was done to try and save their stock price, one that is sure to be punished in the short term since they have now lost #1 status. Expect Empire and Party stock prices to tank (especially Empire's) and expect any other major room to have a major influx of players, especially rakeback rooms.

Much of this is my opinion but noone can deny this crazy decision will send ripple for time to come and how much this benefits other poker rooms.

[players]

Where did you get this news from.

[largeeyes]

Party had a press release stating this.

[spearmaster]

I agree with PokerAddict.

Personally, I am highly disappointed in the moves they have made since floating, not least because I lost a bet with Simmo But I expected that they would go on to bigger and better things - and instead they have done exactly the opposite, with at least two ill-advised moves which could have been averted with proper advice.

The upside of this is that their stock will soon be available at bargain prices. The downside is obviously for people who bought in early - me, I got lucky because I couldn't find a way to buy stock!

Empire, however, is not a stock I think I would ever have recommended - and now they will almost surely go on a tailspin.

[amandajm]

Press Release

[buck]

Reading the press release they appear to want to introduce other gambling to PP users, such as BJ etc. One of the reasons to play PP is the vast amount of users that are on line at one time, which will surely go downhill. If I want to play BJ whilst playing poker I would go to other sites that currently have this "feature"

This will open the other networks up to calim the #1 site.



Buck

[jetset]

I spoke to their Director of communications John Shepherd yesterday about this release and he says it is part of their long term strategic plan to create one big gaming site where their legions of players can use a common account and play casino, poker or even mobile games under optimum conditions and customer support, using the latest technology. This has apparently been announced on several occasions and the skins were in the picture. They're looking to launch this super-site early next year and their customer service infrastructure is already being beefed up.

The skins have been given additional features and will continue to operate on the original platform (see the release) It will be interesting to see if there are any statements from them in this regard.

[jetset]

Empire shares dip as investors fold on poker

Investors in internet poker were scared away from the sector on Monday despite strong third quarter revenue results from Empire Online as PartyGaming, the market leader said that it would take its customers away from the system of pooled poker players that has provided liquidity for all companies.

Empire’s results were overshadowed as Noam Lanir, chief executive, said that there was little growth in the sector during the period and Empire’s shares slumped 24 per cent to 139p.

[Simmo!]

Market Reaction:

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuot...0465745_newsml

[mary]

I read the press put out by analysts on the financial side of things, and I'm not sure that all the money people understand how skins and online gaming work. I think they may have been double-counting players and are in for a bit of a shock.

I just read yesteday of a survey in the UK that had the result that 93% (!) of the respondents had gambled online. That looks like market saturation right there, there may not be much room for growth in the UK market.

I can see why Party would want to market the casinos side to their poker base, casino customers are 8X more profitable per head than poker customers. Why let those players go play on Playtech or Microgaming sites? I haven't looked at Iglobalmedia's casino software in years, is it any good with respect to interface and game selection?

Note to studio audience: Mary will never play at an Iglobalmedia site. They ripped off casino players for years without apology with gaffed games and that's how they funded their poker side. They did not see anything wrong with that; the distinction being that they considered their casino games to be fair because they were random. I consider them to be a scam because they did not follow the math of the casino games they protrayed--they were essentially slot machines looking like table games such as roulette. They made no disclosure at any time to players that this was the case.