Landmark Online Gambling Events of 2011

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The event that had the greatest impact on online gambling in 2011 was beyond doubt Black Friday. On April 14 the US Department of Justice seized the bank accounts and domain names of the three largest global online poker rooms Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker. The charges included incorrect declaration given to banks while processing online gambling payments. PokerStars managed to continue its operations outside the US and eventually paid its American players. The fallout on the American online casino industry was visible. Vegas Technology, a leading software provider to American online casinos, shut down its brands. Many online gambling operators switched from the dotcom domain to other domains because dotcom was controlled from within the United States.

The building of brands and market share elsewhere in the world had already begun and intensified after Black Friday. The software provider Playtech emerged the clear winner with a number of acquisitions and partnerships and entries to recently regulated online gambling markets. Playtech implemented its deal with PT Turnkey Services, the Euro Partners holding company with online casino brands like Casino Tropez. It acquired the mobile specialist Mobenga indicating intent of strengthening its position in the rapidly growing mobile market. Playtech then announced a 10 year licensing deal with the leading online gambling operator Gala Coral, in which Gala will shift all its products and brands to the Playtech software. When online poker cash games and casinos were legalized in Italy Playtech had eight licensees in that market. Most recently Playtech acquired the software developer Ash Gaming.

Cryptologic, on the other hand, lost ground in a big way. Quarter after quarter it churned out mediocre results and new games turnouts were few and sporadic. Rumors that had begun in April 2011 were finally confirmed towards the end of the year. Amaya Gaming Group has made a possible offer for the entire share capital of Cryptologic and now the due diligence and other steps are in progress. In 2010 experts had predicted a reduction in the number of players in the online gambling industry through a consolidation process based on acquisitions and mergers and this has come true.

In the European online gambling market a lot has been happening and hence it is difficult to identify a single landmark event. The dream of the industry of having a uniform regulatory mechanism has at least been temporarily laid to rest, when the European Parliament recognized that national interests had to prevail. The silver lining was that the Parliament gave instructions to act against the proposals that propagated state owned monopolies. This will most affect the plans of Greece and Germany. The online gambling market in France has not taken off as expected due to the turnover tax. The success story in Europe is that of Italy. Without any fanfare, it quietly added online poker cash games and online casino gambling to the existing verticals and is poised to double its turnover in 2012.

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