For domain name suffix experts, June 13 2012 has been in the diary for sometime as the day. Ever since the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) had announced that the gTLD domain suffixes would be expanded the ‘reveal day’ has been a time to get excited about. It would reveal who had applied for what and tell us whether we could expect any auctions for the popular domains. It would end the speculation over whether Ron Jeremy had made an audacious bid for .biggestpackage and whether Floyd Mayweather had wanted .stillrunningscared.
Before the application process began you had to show there was a legitimate reason that you should own the suffix. In all there were 1930 applicants each handing ICANN the $185k cost and, as you’d expect, there were a fair number of suffixes that saw more than one applicant. 13 firms, including Amazon, threw their hat in the ring for .app with .home and .inc coming up second in the popularity contest.
Online gaming industry firms were among those looking at suffixes and there was competition around some common names, and others not so, that are linked to the gaming space. Chief among these were .bet, .casino and .poker with four applicants for each. The list of who applied for what in the gambling industry was as follows:
.BET – dot Bet Limited, Afilias Ltd, Ladbrokes International Plc
.BINGO – Sand Cedar LLC, dot Bingo Ltd
.CASINO – dot Casino Ltd, Binky Sky LLC, Afilias Ltd, dotBeauty LLC
.DEALER – Dealer Dot Com, Inc.
.GENTING – Resorts World Inc Pte. Ltd.
.LADBROKES – Ladbrokes International Plc
. LOTTO – Afilias Ltd
.POKER – Binky Mill LLC, Dot Poker LLC, dot Poker Limited.trading, Afilias Domains No. 6 Ltd.
.RACING – Black Orchard LLC, Premier Registry Ltd, Unregistry Corp.
.SPREADBETTING – IG Group Holdings Plc
.TAB – Tabcorp Holdings Ltd
.TIPS – Corn Willow LLC
.TRADING – Little Manor LLC, IG Group Holdings PLC
.WILLIAMHILL – William Hill Organization Ltd
.WIN – First Registry Ltd
As you’d expect, a number of these have been targeted by domain suffix compilers like Afilias and a name that crops up often as owner of various companies is Daniel Schindler. It’s more interesting to look at actual gaming industry firms that are trying to buy the suffixes. Ladbrokes International Plc has applied for the .bet suffix and it’s interesting that no other sports betting firms have decided to take the plunge. Meanwhile IG Group have been busy and applied for .spreadbetting and .trading – for which it has competition and, like Ladbrokes, will see an auction at some point soon.
Now it’s over to the auctions and after that we’re assuming the lawyers get to sink their teeth into the legal squabbles that follow. At a cost of $25,000 in rent for the suffix it could be a cheap purchase for whoever wins one of these auctions. At the same time it’s clear this has warned off a number of firms and explains why we haven’t seen fevered interest in some domains. After all .com is still going to be the daddy and some will have simply thought it too prohibitive a cost to apply. Others will sit back and watch just how the winners use their domains and come around in the second round if the likes of .ladbrokes and .williamhill are successful.
