Ultimate Poker to up their UK stakes with massive advertising campaign
The US online gaming provider Ultimate Poker is holding a pitch for an £8 million integrated advertising account as it prepares to make a big splash in the UK when gaming laws are relaxed next year.
The company is using the AAR to help it appoint a creative, direct marketing, media and PR agency. The campaign is set to coincide with a shake-up of the current restrictive gambling laws which is expected to pave the way for an influx of US casino owners and gambling outlets.
Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, has defended the plans to liberalise Britain’s gaming laws, which could see casinos open 24 hours a day and able to run advertising for the first time. Gambling in the UK is currently worth more than £60 billion a year.
The brief for the pitch is to devise a through-the-line brand campaign to raise awareness of the services offered by UltimatePoker.
In the UK, Ultimate Poker (AKA Ultimatebet) will compete against 888 and ParadisePoker, with advertising fronted by the model Caprice, in a rapidly expanding market.
Ultimate Bet already sponsor the “classic” 1,000 & 2,000 Guineas horse races in the UK and leading professional poker player Dave “The Devilfish” Ulliott.
PartyPoker’s intention to float on the London Stock Exchange circulate – rumour
Reports that Togel may be planning to float on the London Stock exchange were far from quashed when Pokernews.info contacted the online poker giant’s parent company, iGlobalMedia, Group yesterday.
A spokesman told Pokernews.info: “iGlobalMedia Group has held talks with some London-based banks, but nothing more; at this time there is no transaction imminent.”
Banking issues apart, floatation may also depend on the legal issue of gambling in the United States, where the vast majority of PartyPoker customers are based.
It’s currently illegal to offer U.S. citizens fixed-odds betting but it could be argued poker does not fall into this bracket as it merely takes a rake of pots as a service provider.
The market value of PartyPoker.com is open to wildly varying estimates. However, with 50,000 people playing at peak times on more than 5,000 tables, it is believed the site’s annual profits are somewhere between $100 million and $200,000 million.
These figures dwarf those of Paradise Poker, which was recently sold to SportingBet at a cost of $300 million, and values PartyPoker well in excess of $2 billion.