Ryanair Online Casino Reports True
Published: Monday, November 07, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
RYANAIR ONLINE CASINO REPORTS TRUE
In-flight online casino gambling entertainment on the cards
Some months back, Online-Casinos.com & InfoPowa reported on speculation that
Ryanair had plans to introduce online casino gambling to its in-flight entertainment
offerings, but unfortunately we were unable to follow up on the story when the
budget airline ignored our questions.
This week, it appears that the airline is now ready to talk, with several articles
appearing in mainstream as well as online casino gambling media.
The announcement came from no less than the founder of Ryanair, Michael O'Leary,
and he revealed that there were plans to introduce in-flight casino gambling by
2007 which may prompt it to offer free tickets if successful.
According to O'Leary, Ryanair plans to launch a gambling service in the next 12
to 18 months with a payment system that would allow it to debit a passenger's
credit card before the plane lands. Passengers would be able gamble using the
mobile phones supplied by the airlines.
O'Leary is looking to team up with a few online gaming operators for this initiative
in the next two to three months, he says. The trials are expected to be launched
by the summer of 2006 summer, and if even 25 to 30 percent of passengers enjoyed
this service, he predicted a rise in revenues worth GBP 50 million.
Currently, services including car hire, hotels, travel insurance and in-flight
sales make up for about 20 per cent of Ireland based- Ryanair's GBP 950 million
turnover, O'Leatry revealed. It also accounted for 16 percent of the companys
GBP 200 million annual profits. Mr O'Leary foresaw rise in non-ticket revenues
with introduction of more in-flight entertainment.
