Published: Friday, August 05, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
FREE PLAY SITE IN U.S. FROM SPORTSBOOK.COM
TV adverts will target new free play site
Sportsbook.com is following a now established advertising trend of using a free play website to heighten U.S. awareness of their onling gambling operations without transgressing complicated American online gambling laws.
The US facing company has launched a play-for-fun sports betting site at Sportsbook.tv that offers live odds and sports information, alongside play-money casino and poker games.
Sportsbook's ambitious plans include using the new site as a target venue for a series of TV shows currently in development. "The model for advertising a branded poker education site and enjoying the accidental cross-sell is well proven" Alex Czajkowski, marketing director of sportsbook, said.
The online gambling company has developed 30 minute television programs in different formats that will direct traffic to the play money site. Play-for-free sites, commonly termed "dot nets", have become one of the most frequently used legal marketing techniques by poker sites in the US. With no links to real money operations, these allow operators to advertise more freely within the US sector including on television.
Czajkowski said that offline advertisements were currently running in core test markets to boost viewership for the TV programs, rather than directly advertising the site itself.