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Finally I could pull myself together and let the confidential blog get it's well-deserved come back.
Why the period of silence? - Well, mainly, because the first quarter has been an incredible ride for us, and blogging is one of those nice add-on tasks that you need a little quiet time for.
We took on 59(!) new starters down here in Gibraltar in the last 3 months - and besides recruiting, the other topics scaled up on a similar pace. That's of course all good and I'm sure that from a player / member / customer point of view, improvements will be visible quickly.
The State of the Industry
Normally, I would have had given regular updates - as a lot happened, let me just summarize some things as quick bullet points:
• party.bwin merger complete - we can expect a more aggressive stance on the poker market of the new combined behemoth. After an initial dip, stock market analysts also seem to be happy now.
• Regulation in Germany & Spain upcoming - 2012 will see two more European large countries go the path of regulation & legalisation, probably in a better fashion than Italy (no cash games initially) and France (too high taxes) - that's the good thing about not being first: you can learn from other people's mistakes :)
• Cash games return to Italy! - after more than 18 months of the Italian market being regulated with only SNGs and Tournaments available, cash games should be back within a few months now.
• 888poker continued their rally (which I strongly believe is based on good decision making) and is now up 50% year-on-year in terms of traffic! No wonder that Ladbrokes is rumoured to consider raising their bid on buying 888.
The State of PokerStrategy.com
We had a successful first quarter, both in terms of recruiting (see above), but also traffic and business wise.
If you trust Alexa, PokerStrategy.com now comfortably is one of the 1,000 most trafficked websites world-wide.
In the next days, I hopefully will post some photos from the company / new office space / events - for as long, you might want to have a look at our 'corporate' Facebook page.
Let's now finish this blog post with a nice picture:
#1
andreimgs, 08 Apr 11 07:52
There is no picture at the end:)#2
Kongotto, 08 Apr 11 08:41
Poker legal in Germany?So Germans can only play vs germans? and pay 5 to 10% Rake?
#3
Joakim, 08 Apr 11 12:07
The right face at the right magazine!#4
Tudazul, 08 Apr 11 13:33
Nice to see post here.Worry about this ita/french regulation model growing to other countries.
#5
The4thPhase, 08 Apr 11 16:41
Bwin.Party ist ja in den letzten Tage mal richtig hart abgestürzt (aktuell 1.59€ vor zwei Tagen noch ~2.30€).. was ist da los?#6
Xantos, 09 Apr 11 10:41
@Kongotto:Not yet - but Germany could regulate in 2012 in a similar fashion as Italy/France.
@The4thPhase:
Die Investoren befürchten eine extrem teure Regulierung in Deutschland, insb. im Bereich Sportwetten (fast 17% auf den Einsatz!).
#7
Kogtistiy, 10 Apr 11 09:54
I can't see any pictures, too! :(#8
darkprice, 25 Apr 11 10:05
Can be get some stats on top 30 forum posters in 2011?#9
darkprice, 27 Apr 11 01:36
*we