FACEBOOK POKER

25 January 2008

Another gambling application climbs aboard the community express


uJogo, a rewards-based poker site, has positioned its allegedly legal poker product on the major community website Facebook following extensive research into the advantages and obstacles that may be encountered.

uJogo paid research firm TNS to conduct the study, which revealed that here are about 30 million adults who play roughly three hours of free online poker a week — in other words, there are some 5 billion person-hours a year out there, just waiting to be monetised. And even that is only a fraction of the 23 billion person-hours a year spent on casual gaming as a whole.

But poker wisdom holds that a player has three tools at his disposal: his hand, his chips, and his opponent. The simple fact is that people play differently when there’s nothing to lose, a company spokesman said this week.

In the U.S., however, legally it’s hard give players something to lose. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006 tried to stifle domestic gambling by prohibiting U.S. financial institutions from funding gambling accounts. Players wanting to play for money circumvented this by working with foreign e-wallet or fund card accounts. Even Yahoo UK has tried for-money poker offshore, and the result has been good gameplay on offshore sites, and a less enticing experience within the United States.

Following the study, uJogo set out to find a way to give players the feeling of having something to lose without running afoul of the law. First, it launched a web-based game. And last week, the company launched a new Facebook application, built on the same technology as the web portal it has been running since June last year.

Motivating uJogo was the example afforded by Facebook’s free Texas Hold’em Poker application - the third most active application on the site having been installed some 5.4 million times. It has over 370 000 players active daily, and a viral model that gives players more chips when they invite their friends.

uJogo is free, too, but it offers a reward model. It’s not the first to pay players: There are other private companies (such as Prizewagon, Triplejack, and the National League of Poker) that offer some forms of compensation. uJogo is betting that its combination of gameplay, tournament models, and social networking alongside rewards and sponsorship can differentiate it.

At uJogo, players earn points for things like signing up, inviting others, time played, certain winning hands, and number of games played. These points are then redeemed at the uJogo store. Players also win points for being top-ranked on the leaderboard. They start with 1 000 chips each, and if a player runs out of money, they can reload to 1 000. Currently, players can reload infinitely, so there’s nothing to discourage a new player from playing recklessly, at least at first. But as they build a higher bankroll, the threat of losing it all and starting at 1 000 again becomes real: Only the top bankrolls win the big points rewards on the leaderboard.

In the future, the company will limit the number of times a player can reload in a given period. But CEO Eric Gonzales points out that in certain tournament formats, such as multi-table or sit-and-go games, going all in isn’t an effective strategy. “Rewards and type of game are what really deter people,” says Gonzales. “What the good players end up doing is playing the higher-stakes tables because new users can only reload to 1 000 chips.”

uJogo targets the U.S.-based “serious amateur” — someone who wants to become a better player, but doesn’t want to break the law. The company generates revenue from advertising and licensing, though it ultimately wants less intrusive forms of promotion, such as logos on the table or the cards. Players are rewarded based on their chip totals. In addition, the site also offers more advanced features, such as multi-table tournament play.

uJogo also signs up sponsors, an area where Gonzales sees the most opportunity. “There’s a fair amount of interest from casinos because they don’t have much of an online presence, and uJogo is a way for them to dip their toe in the water with an online poker system that’s legal,” he explains. And he notes that the firm has been very conservative with its legal position: While casino-related rewards such as hotel points or in-person tournament buy-ins might be possible, the relationship is primarily a way of bringing casino branding online.

Online poker sites, even the free ones, aren’t without their challenges. For one thing, the more closely a site engages its members, the more it needs to police social interactions. uJogo has faced an increase in offensive chatroom activity in recent weeks from users that seem to be targeting the site. “It’s almost as if someone is trying to bring us down,” says Gonzales.

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa