TV & Gambling - A Potent Force For The Future

Published: Friday, February 24, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

TV & GAMBLING - A POTENT FORCE FOR THE FUTURE

Murdoch scion speaks on the power of TV as a gambling medium

James Murdoch, the recently appointed chief executive of PBL and the UK satellite TV company BSkyB, told bookmakers in London this week that TV and gambling was destined to be a powerful synergistic force in the future.

Murdoch was a guest speaker at a Bookies Banquet organised by Orbis and told an appreciative audience that his group had been "surprised" by the positive response to its Sky Vegas Live channel. "Even though the audience is only between 2,000 and 10,000, the evidence is that interactive TV and gambling will be a very powerful force in the future" he said.

Launched last year, the Sky Vegas Channel features virtual racing and keno programming, but md Nick Rust opined that the combination of interactive television and gaming was both powerful and only just starting to impinge on the consciousness of businessmen and players alike.

"It won't be long before you see a properly interactive poker channel" Rust predicted. "In the last week of February, for instance, there were 11 channels in the UK featuring poker content, but they were all showing it in pretty much the same way." This could change rapidly with UK regulations now under consultation, and interactive television could change the way many people gamble, he said.