The Vultures Are Circling

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I just got this email from Chili Poker today:

MALTA, 17/04/2011 – Beat the Black Friday with the Chilipoker.com Purple Day

In response to the Black Friday of the online poker, Chilipoker.com decided to announce its ‘Purple Day’.
More than ever, Chilipoker is a European safe and secure poker environment as the company never took any US bets.

To start a new dawn of safe online poker experience, Chilipoker is proud to offer you an exclusive package :

> First deposit bonus 200% up to $1,000 : bonus code – PAYDAY
> increasing the guaranteed prize pools of its famous online tournaments to $10 millions per month
> buying Loyalty Points from others poker rooms (!)
> adding new daily freerolls to discover Chilipoker.com

Chilipoker.com is a member of leading iPoker Network.

http://www.chilipoker.com/purple-day-vs-black-friday.html

Last week, Chilipoker launched its innovative social tool, named Chiliconnect, allowing online poker players to get connected and challenge each other.

http://www.chilipoker.com/chiliconnect/

To support our growth, a TV campaign will be launched very soon :

http://www.chilipoker.com/english/about-us/tv-spots.html

Chilipoker.com is also the proud sponsor of the DeepStackOpen.com tour in 7 cities in Europe with more than 450 players per legs.

I don’t use the word vulture in a bad way. It’s just an indication that some people are sensing Stars and Tilt are weak and in total disarray and looking to capitalize on it. That’s just good business.

I’ve also been hearing murmurs that other sites are going to take a similar attack line. One former colleague of mine told me “I have never been so excited to go to work as I am today.”

This is what I was talking about yesterday. So many companies that have been operating non-US facing sites have felt like they’ve been fighting a hopeless battle. No matter what you can bring to the table Tilt and Stars can just dump loads of money and throw their influence around and throw a wet towel on it. Obviously this hits people’s morale and perhaps even their desire to innovate since it seems so pointless anyway.

As I said, I think this will actually invigorate the online poker industry. Now they actually have a fighting chance.

4 thoughts on “The Vultures Are Circling”

  1. The problem is that the hyenas (more accurate than vultures I think) are small for good reasons, and no matter how much they complain about it, it isn’t much to do with the US.

    Bad support, scummy practises, dumb promotions, awful software, and less liquidity.

    Losing the US only changed one of those things and Stars and Tilt are still bigger.

    I think these skins that are desperately attacking the big two in a moment of perceived weakness are going to hurt themselves more. I’d be more worried about having money on or being an affiliate for a site that promised to pay out 110% of a player’s revenue than on Stars or Tilt.

  2. Pingback: The European Offensive — Bill's Poker Blog

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