Getting the right domain name can be the difference between your site being the one that everyone flocks or the place that no one would be seen dead at – not even in a cheap suit. This is the case in the online gambling industry as much as it is with the rest of the Internet, which is why it’s no surprise that the latest domain name to go under the hammer has quite the reserve.
We already reported late last year that Gambling.com was to follow Sex.com and Calvin Ayre’s purchase of Slots.com by becoming one of the domain name sales that gets talked about from pillar to post in the online gambling industry.
According to a report in The Times, Media Corporation expects the domain to fetch around $10million (£6.4million), with a reserve of $9million having been set. Amongst the private equity companies and online gambling industry there are obviously a number of suitors, public company bet365 and Playtech thought to be up there with the other bidders.
Justin Drummond, chief executive of Media Corp, recognizes that any sale is a gamble in itself on the US market ever opening up to the extent it was back in October 2006 before UIGEA.
Obviously Gambling.com is quite the domain if you want to start up a site offering customers the chance to gamble. We, however, have already seen predictions that a domain such as Slots.com holds more value than one like Gambling.com or Casino.com purely because Slots.com will be associated with a lot more than the latter two names.
It will be very interesting to see whom ends up with the domain name though, and with the auction of 2000 more domain names in the gambling industry, 2011 could be the year of the domain name collection.
