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Andrew Donoghue
ZDNet UK
January 26, 2005, 17:00 GMT“Yahoo has announced a joint venture with UK betting exchange company Betfair to launch a gambling site aimed at the mass market.
Yahoo Betting, as the site will be known, is due to launch in March and is designed to take the advanced features available on Betfair’s main site and make them accessible to a Yahoo’s user base. The exchange will be accessible through the sports and finance sections of Yahoo as well as from other areas across the portal.
“By creating a customised Betfair exchange for the Yahoo platform, we are offering the revolutionary dynamics of an exchange to a wider audience in a more traditional and customer-friendly way,” said Betfair’s chief executive Stephen Hill.
Betfair was set up in 2000 by former professional gambler Andrew Black and ex-city trader Edward Wray.
Betfair’s model applies the collaborative power of the Internet to the traditional bookmaking model by allowing punters to bet at odds set by other gamblers rather than a bookmaker.
The model was slow to take off at first, with the fledgling site matching less than £50,000 of bets a week in its first month. A year later that figure had grown to over £1m a week and it now stands at some £50m.”
When will Google launch their gambling site?
:rollover:Nice find, Mark!!!! :colgate:
This sets a nice precedent!
So that was the portal/search engine long range plans. Weed out the gambling ads from their sites and then do a partnership with a gambling site. Not comfortable taking money for gambling ads but happy to take money from gamblers.
Betfair are also trying to partner with Kerry Packer here in Australia but are getting opposition from the horse racing fraternity among others. Packer, for those not aware, is Australia’s wealthiest person, owns some casinos, tv stations and newspapers/magazines and heaps of other ventures. He also loves a bet as many Vegas casinos would know. Betfair looks like it might be trying to expand by getting into these partnerships rather than just relying on spending heaps on marketing, that is, link up with media owners and share the rewards with them as partners rather than just hand over money for unknown results. Just my thoughts.
My my thoughts too.
Really, when will google open their gambling search?
They can not stay out from the business forever.Jarvi wrote:So that was the portal/search engine long range plans. Weed out the gambling ads from their sites and then do a partnership with a gambling site. Not comfortable taking money for gambling ads but happy to take money from gamblers.Betfair are also trying to partner with Kerry Packer here in Australia but are getting opposition from the horse racing fraternity among others. Packer, for those not aware, is Australia’s wealthiest person, owns some casinos, tv stations and newspapers/magazines and heaps of other ventures. He also loves a bet as many Vegas casinos would know. Betfair looks like it might be trying to expand by getting into these partnerships rather than just relying on spending heaps on marketing, that is, link up with media owners and share the rewards with them as partners rather than just hand over money for unknown results. Just my thoughts.
To be fair, Yahoo didn’t pull gambling ads from their international sites. Try a search on Overture for their UK results.
Yahoo has always been relatively gambling friendly. Casino on Net put itself on the map in large part because of a major Yahoo relationship.
I wasn’t really just talking about just Yahoo! as my comments were more general in nature and waiting to see if any other portals/search engines follow the same way.
So that was the portal/search engine long range plans. Weed out the gambling ads from their sites and then do a partnership with a gambling site. Not comfortable taking money for gambling ads but happy to take money from gamblers.
Actually, Yahoo buckled under to the threats from the US DOJ and stopped taking ads, just like everyone else.
They must, however, been conferring with their lawyers and decided to make a big step by getting in bed with online betting in the UK.
I see this as a positive! They are courageous enough, despite being US based, to support and even partner with online betting abroad. This is snubbing it’s nose at the DOJ’s threats and making a statement.
I just hope more US companies follow suit!
i agree that this is great news for the industry…if a company like yahoo can jump into the gambling industry without the government coming down on them, then the future is certainly looking up…
my question is how can this be considered legal by the u.s.?…in looking at betfair’s site, they obviously take u.s. gamblers…in fact the bet fair poker site defaults to u.s.a. for the country you are registering from…so, wouldn’t that mean that yahoo is accepting bets from u.s. gamblers, or at the very least facilitating u.s. gambling through betfair as some sort of uber-mega-monster affiliate…or, is it that yahoo is “customizing” the application so that u.s. gamblers are not filtered through them…it still seems that they would be operating in a gray area that the doj would not look favorably upon…
in either case, with yahoo setting a precedent here, it seems to put a steak in the ground further up the trail for all of us…
I’m not so sure this is a good thing. Its going to force a play now.
bb1webs wrote:I’m not so sure this is a good thing. Its going to force a play now.
I tend to agree for several reasons. The way I see it, the Yahoo initiative can threaten our current business as affiliates.
1) Today, any webmaster in the US can make money promoting online gambling. It’s not illegal, we can make enough to pay our bills. If the Yahoo initiative catches the attention of some politicians, special interest groups, etc., there may be a chance that our livelyhood may become illegal. That’s not a risk I want to take. I would rather have the status quo.
2) Yahoo is huge corporation with incredible marketing power. If you read the article, it says that players can access the new site “Yahoo betting” from the yahoo platform. Let’s say “Yahoo Betting” becomes the most popular gambling site and most gamblers start to play there. What happens to our affiliate earnings? Yahoo wouldn’t need us to refer players because players are being referred directly from Yahoo. We would all be fighting for scraps trying to promote the smaller sites.Of course,I could be completely wrong. But, I just don’t want to jeapardize changing the staus quo for a worse scenario.
i can certainly see the reason for concern…however, let me offer this potential scenario…
yahoo offers “Yahoo Betting”
people who are leary of gambling online feel they can now trust it
they get bored of bet fair’s platform
more overall gamblers look for another place or other games to playkind of like the poker craze…with it being in the mainstream, people feel that it is ok, it’s not really a sin, it must be safe to do it online…so they go out and give it a try…it could be a great boon to the affiliate industry…
i’m not sure what the stats are, but many people i talk to about online gambling always have the same questions “how do i know i can trust it?”…which leads me to believe there are a lot of people waiting on the sidelines to know it is safe first…
just some food for thought
Apart from being politically very bold and certainly showing to US politicians that they are losing out on so much revenue by not regulating and taxing online gambling, I definitely see it like this:
kind of like the poker craze…with it being in the mainstream, people feel that it is ok, it’s not really a sin, it must be safe to do it online…so they go out and give it a try…it could be a great boon to the affiliate industry…
:clapper:
And I am certanly not worried about it posing more competition – we can take the competition. We always have.
To me, the political impact is the most important factor, and the increased citizen acceptance is second most important.
And I have to say it again: There is no federal law against online betting, they have tried to pass it for years and never succeeded. Online gambling is NOT lillegal in the US except in some states who actually did pass laws.
Because it is not possible to pass a law because of lack of support for it, the DOJ took it upon himself to try to scare some of the larger businesses out of the industry. Successfully so. My take has always beeen and still is that this is temporary. In the end, money always talks.
Also, I have some trust in the American public – I do not think that people like the government to tell them how they can and cannot spend their hard earned Dollar. Gambling is a harmless pastime for the vast majority – and the very small minority who does get addicted is very easily treated. Curing gambling addicition is the easiest of all addictions. It is pretty much always successful.
Selling beer at the corner store is doing a lot more damage than selling gambling. By far.
And since the FCC has decided that internet communications and phone communications are NOT the same, the wireact is NOT applicable anymore.
I would imagine that the FCC action precipitated and faciliated the Yahoo decision.
do you have a link to that FCC decision somewhere…that’s one i wasn’t aware of…
