Calvin Ayre’s bold predictions for the online gambling biz in 2011

Calvin Ayre
Calvin Ayre
December 28, 2010
31 Comments

Another new year is almost upon us, and as an online gaming industry veteran of some standing, I guess I’m expected to offer up some fearless predictions for what I see transpiring in 2011. For the record, I don’t actually own a crystal ball, but for the past couple hours I’ve been staring into the crystal martini glasses that are cluttering up my workstation, and I’ve seen some wacky shit in there… For example:

✖ All the major publicly traded companies will take on massive debt in Euros, in the hope of paying it back in Sterling at some later… Hang on… Actually, that’s one of last year’s predictions, so never mind.

✖ Pwin shareholders will reject the thoroughly unimaginative bwin.party moniker and will instead take this site’s repeated advice on the new name for their two-headed monster. However, the company’s lack of imagination will return with a vengeance on its new “Gamble.Website” campaign.
calvin-ayre-predictions
✖ Harry Reid will attempt (and fail) to slip a 1,900 page online bingo bill into a Senate roll call.

✖ At least one major poker company is killed by the cruel hand of the marketplace; two others commit ritual suicide after being bullied once too often on CalvinAyre.com.

✖ If a punter asks to place a traditional ‘against the house’ bet, Betfair customer service will helpfully direct them to that area of their site. If Inland Revenue asks why Betfair shouldn’t pay the same tax as other bookmakers, Betfair will say that they’re not a traditional bookmaker. If asked for the time, Betfair execs will reply: “Time is an artificial construct man attempts to impose on a disordered universe” followed by a muttered “Shit, we’re late for the 2:15 at Doncaster.”

✖ Mitch Garber (former Harrah’s Interactive and PartyGaming executive poster boy) will convince yet another organization with money and dreams that he has either started or run an online gaming company (in truth, he has done neither, much to the shock of Harrah’s management during his last gig).

✖ Ladbrokes will succeed in acquiring 888 the second time around and rebrand the site as 8pm.com, the hour at which most of Lads’ senior management return their teeth to the glass on the nightstand, put on their warm wooly jammies and climb into bed.

✖ Sportsbook.com‘s owner will sell his company to Sportingbet PLC (which he also owns) for the second time. He will then sell Sportsbook back to himself for $10 and a pack of Winston Lights — proving once and for all that minority shareholders in public companies really are that stupid.

✖ Following my own appearance pimping the Bodog Brand in Playboy, the BetUS owners will appear in National Geographic under the headline ‘New Species of Parasite Discovered in Costa Rica’.

✖ London-based physicists will marvel at a curious vortex emanating from a mansion in Mayfair that reduces otherwise upstanding members of the media to a state of wanton immorality that even barnyard animals would find depraved — prompting scientific journals to dub the source of the vortex The ‘Dog House.

✖ EnterAsia wins the Swiss Cheese Live Dealer award for the impressive number of ways its system manages to get defrauded.

✖ Paddy Power assumes the title of largest publicly traded online gaming company, causing intense moments of self-doubt at CalvinAyre.com as we come to terms with the fact that we are not always right.

✖ Cole Turner will puke on himself. Again.

BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS…

✔ 2011 will see a continued increase in global stature for privately-held, London-based online gaming companies like Bet365 at the expense of publicly-traded companies and private companies based in less professional jurisdictions (where it’s much harder to build world-class teams). The privately held companies will also be the ones doing all the major hires — and learning all the secret sauce recipes from the execs made redundant by the mega-mergers.

✔ Europe will continue its Balkanization trend, with each country having its own set of rules (also referred to as walled gardens in some reports). But this is of limited significance, because as of 2014, Europe will be less than 20% of the global market and these walled gardens will be the only markets open to the public companies — meaning the public companies are like fish trapped in a drying pond.

✔ The launch by (at least) one US state of its own online gambling operation will set in motion a process that ultimately undermines any attempt at instituting online gambling at the federal level — meaning every penny spent on lobbying the federal gov’t on this issue will have been a complete waste of resources.

✔ Asia will continue to grow in significance relative to all other markets and big Asian private companies will arrive on the world scene like some reenactment of “Storm from the East” — Genghis Khan’s invasion of Europe.

✔ Mobile will continue on its path to becoming the dominant way of accessing the internet.

✔ The only thing that will stop Live Dealer from continued growth will be if the world runs short of desirable women willing to flip cards in front of video cameras.

✔ More companies will follow CalvinAyre.com’s lead by switching their technical operations to eco-friendly operations like Iceland’s ThorDC. While ‘going green’ will be the public selling point, saving ‘green’ will prove the tipping point. When gaming companies realize that outfits like ThorDC offer a quality product at a cost that competes with traditional sources, switching will become a no-brainer. Pwin will even attempt to get into the act by sponsoring a clean energy initiative they’ll call Pwind Farms, which will (ahem) blow.

✔ Bodog Europe CEO Patrik Selin will finally publicly release details on what his real plans are for the online gaming world and how he plans to integrate this with mobile and social media (OK, this isn’t so much a prediction, as he actually told me he was going to do this one).

Other than that, nothing much in our industry will fundamentally change in 2011, which is basically what I’ve been saying for the past year. And you’ll all keep coming back to this site, because nobody makes saying nothing of substance so damn entertaining. Happy new year, everybody!

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Tags: 2011 predictions, Article, Calvin Ayre, Online Gaming Industry
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  • http://CalvinAyre.com Calvin Ayre

    By the way…we are open to publishing other guys predictions if you send them into us. Always interested in the prediction game.

  • http://CalvinAyre.com Calvin Ayre

    By the way…we are open to publishing other guys predictions if you send them into us. Always interested in the prediction game.

  • http://topsy.com/calvinayre.com/2010/12/28/business/calvin-ayre-predictions-online-gambling-biz-2011/?utm_source=pingback&utm_campaign=L2 Tweets that mention Calvin Ayre’s bold predictions for the online gambling biz in 2011: Calvin Ayre 2011 online gambling predictions… — Topsy.com

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Calvin Ayre and others. Calvin Ayre said: Calvin Ayre’s bold predictions for the online gambling biz in 2011: Calvin Ayre 2011 online gambling predictions… http://bit.ly/hndlgF [...]

  • http://www.gpwa.org/forum/igaming-industry-predictions-2011-a-194737.html#post628194 iGaming industry Predictions for 2011 – Gambling Portal Webmasters Association

    [...] industry Predictions for 2011 Interesting (and funny) article by Calvin re: 2011 iGaming industry predictions. As many of you know, I've known Calvin for a while (almost 6 years now!) and he often makes [...]

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  • Shakirakitten

    Hilarious message and I like your writing style. The ups and downs, winners and losers in the online gambling stakes are already legendary and your blog captures that. So amusing.

  • http://twitter.com/BetFred_Affs Betfred Anthony

    Calvin – your entire article is undermined by the fact that you claim bet365 are based in London.

    My Logic and Reason have proved you wrong.

    @BetFred_Affs

  • http://www.mohegansunpokeratpoconodowns.com Tom Dwyer

    wtf calvin, I wasted the morning cup of joe reading this shit.

  • http://www.mohegansunpokeratpoconodowns.com Tom Dwyer

    wtf calvin, I wasted the morning cup of joe reading this shit.

  • http://CalvinAyre.com Calvin Ayre

    Must have been a crack in my crystal martini glasses :-) Yes Stoke is not London and their concentration of operations there is actually a big strength of theirs. They do have a UK gaming license though (and at least one other) and I do like their strategies in spite of my bad geography in this situation.

    I like your company also by the way…I believe I had the pleasure of sharing a drink with your founder/owner once at an executive retreat north of London….I actually got the MC of the event so drunk later that same night that he puked on his only suit, slept on the floor of a public washroom and had to pay 1500 pounds to repair an antique chair he also spewed on. Showed up three sessions late in the morning in a very funny outfit…I was on a panel later that day and its where I first met Patrik Selin…he was the guy sitting to my direct left that kept making sense when he talked. Our intrepid MC had to do the afternoon MCing in a fluffy track suit that looked like an old pair of jammies. Always thought that might have been why they never invited me back to speak. Maybe it was because I told them poker was the next poker…that was over 5 years ago and so far its held true.

    You should send us your predictions :-)

  • http://CalvinAyre.com Calvin Ayre

    not that this is relevant, but Robbie Williams is also from Stoke and I had a party last year that reminded me of that video he did where he work up and the house was destroyed and everyone was passed out all over the place. Might have been a bet365 staff party in his video?

  • http://twitter.com/BetFred_Affs Betfred Anthony

    You SURE about the bet365 staff partying hard like Robbie Williams, Calvin?

    I can't speak for all of them, of course, but the last time I shared a beer after a Budapest conference with some of the Marketing Team a couple of them didn't look like they'd make the distance

    http://bit.ly/eu9PXM

    Actually, joking aside you can't really argue with their success can you!… [note to self: perhaps this explains the phenomenal success of their marketing efforts - maybe I'll stick to the mineral water at LAC 2011]

  • http://CalvinAyre.com Calvin Ayre

    its hard to please everyone…which part exactly did you find was not worthy so I can publish more of it?

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  • JoeAdams

    I think something's missing in this predictions? What would be the future for Phil Hellmuth in either actual or online casino gambling industry? And so as Phil Ivey's luck fortune for this year.

  • http://CalvinAyre.com Calvin Ayre

    yup…I stayed away from predicting poker players performance on purpose, much harder to do than predicting the industry as the trends are already in play. I have met both Phil's and they will both do fine this year I am sure.

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  • Joe Martin

    Hold on to your Hat Calvin .Chief brand is coming with the “Big 50″ 50 Sports Book Review sites with space for only the top 20 Sports Books. Those Sports Books who don't jump on this advertising and promotional offer are going to miss Big in 2011

  • http://CalvinAyre.com Calvin Ayre

    aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh…..OK…..sounds huge ;-)

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