News

Monday, 07 February 2011 01:41

With the local market for domain names growing fast, it seems that the price tag of $100,000 for recently sold poker.com.au is well below its potential value.

While the sale of poker.com.au at a knock-down price of "only" US$100,000 to online gambling company 888 Holdings might be seen by many in the industry as a steal, there could be a longer term investment potential to that domain. Currently, Australian laws are very tight with regards to online gambling and any advertising related to it. This means that any website placed on that domain would not benefit from the potential advertising bonanza it could attract if the laws were less strict. This, according to experts is why the price for poker.com.au was well below its true value.

For example, the Canadian counterpart to that local domain, poker.ca sold last year for four times as much. This is because Canadian laws do not restrict online gambling advertising and so the owner of the website will get a good return on their investment in advertising fees.

The Australian legislation that prohibits any form of interactive gambling advertising is ten years old and there is mounting pressure on the government for the laws to be amended and brought up to date. The main reason for this is to reflect the way that modern gamblers go about their particular vice and the changes to the world of online gambling that has exploded in recent years. The theory amongst those who want the laws relaxed is that by allowing access to online poker websites, the government will earn a huge slice of the revenue generated by the industry in taxation. This revenue could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars a year, while from a legislative standpoint the industry can finally be regulated and Australian citizens protected from unregulated foreign operators who are siphoning those funds offshore, tax free.

So far, 888 Holdings, owners of the gambling website 888.com has not made use of poker.com.au for anything related to gambling. However, the company claims that there is a new and very exciting poker revolution coming soon, although what that revolution is has not been elaborated on as yet.

It appears that the new owners of poker.com.au have taken a gamble themselves that the Australian interactive gambling laws will change to allow the advertising that will bring in a return on their investment. Should this happen, then they will find themselves sitting on a domain that could suddenly quadruple or more in value overnight.