Online Gambling Heating Up in Australia - Marketing Magazine

The world of online casinos and igaming is really heating up down under in Australia, as recently reported on Gambling911.

I own and operate Sydney based media, publicity and portal development company, Media Man Australia. We recently made the Hitwise Australia top ten awards for the fifth year running in the entertainment - personalities category. We're averaging 1 million hits per month, and that's just on our main website, never mind the other half dozen sites.

The interest and growth in the online casino and igaming sector over the past 6 - 12 months has been significant enough for us to justify opening a dedicated online casino arm, Casino News Media. This also compliments our Australian Sports Entertainment website. We're also looking at a dedicated website portal themed for Australian casino news.

In the past month alone we have driven forward companies with Ezybet, The Bingo Affiliates, BetCruise and JackpotCity, and we're also doing some major b2b affiliate based campaigns with PartyGaming - PartyPartners, Virgin Games, PKR and Rewards Affiliates.

Captain Cooks Casino, established in 1999, is also going really well, which demonstrates that geographic location does make a difference even to online gamblers, Aussie themed online casinos compliment Aussie website portals, and that being able to receive (and pay) funds in a variety of currencies is an advantage. The Bingo Affiliates also have dedicated websites for many regions, with portals for Australia, Canada and France. BetCruise has taken the cruise liner and lifestyle look and feel theme to their website, and also promotes the trust factor in their casino. Captain Cooks, Virgin, JackpotCity and Rewards Affiliates are also well trusted, especially for the online casino industry.

Part of our strategy involves matching up tradition media coverage to new media, having the right balance of news, publicity and online advertising, and spreading the traffic across a variety of website portals, which all compliment each other. As we grow new websites are developed and launched, in line with increased traffic and revenues. We're soon expanding again with projects relating to World Poker Tour, World Series of Poker, Paramount Pictures and Marvel Slot Online, based on Marvel entertainment super hero online slots.

Mainstream entertainment themes have generally adapted well to online gaming, and one need not look further than the slots by Marvel including The Hulk, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four, and PartyCasino's The Terminator, The Godfather, TOP GUN, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, and Saturday Night Live. My sources tell me that the online casino world can soon expected themed slots on Rambo, Frank Sinatra and Dungeons & Dragons.

Having the right partners and alliances continues to play an important role. For live and near live newsfeeds we have Fairfax, The New York Times, search - Google, web hosting - SIS Group, and very good relationships with News Limited, CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com, Gambling911 and other gaming and mainstream press, including in the all important Las Vegas and New York.

Online casino news portal development is also a low risk business, opposed to owning and operating a traditional casino, as I'm certain bean counters at Crown, Tabcorp, Trump and Las Vegas Sands could attest to.

It's all a battle for the entertainment dollar, eyeballs, traffic, advertisers and customers.

With all things considered, the news portal and online casino news portal development sector would appear to be an attractive industry vertical to operate in. We've most certainly found it to be an exciting, fun and profitable sector.

Scoop - The Australian newspaper to run a special 6 to 8 page feature on gambling, gaming and betting this March. Be watching out for 'The Punt'.

Director
Media Man Australia
Casino News Media