Poker The Next Target For Sports 911

Published: Friday, March 25, 2005 Online-Casinos.com

POKER THE NEXT TARGET FOR SPORTS 911

Popular sportsbook portal working closely with Bluff Magazine

Sports911, a popular sportsbook portal is turning its attention to the booming poker sector.

"These are market segments that since our start in September 2000 have been widely ignored by us," commented Christopher Costigan, founder and President of Sports911. "I'm a firm believer in starting off slowly and meticulously in order to engineer a product that remains true to its core market. As such, we've been able to hone our craft in a very specific sector - that being online sports betting news and information. Now that we have built a solid niche within this respective community, Sports911 must position itself to encompass a much broader scope."

That broader scope is Internet poker and poker in general in addition to the European sports and gaming scene.

"Over this next quarter we will crank up our online poker and European gaming coverage another notch, this includes extensive profiling of companies Sports911.com deems to be leaders in both sectors. On average we anticipate devoting at least 25% of our daily news coverage to Internet poker and European gaming whereas Sports911 in the past focused almost entirely on the North American sports betting arena."

Costigan claims that Sports911 is already beginning to build a following in some European countries. Recent stats show the Netherlands to have the third largest concentration of Sports911 readers after the United States and Canada.

Other countries where Sports911 readership is significant include: The United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, Denmark and Sweden. Australia, Mexico and Japan also represent a decent percentage of Sports911 readers. This was probably a result of the portal cetering for the European market by providing regional sports and gaming news that interests readers in those locations.

As part of the new marketing strategy, Sports911 has been working closely with Bluff Magazine publisher, Eric Morris, whose company regularly supplies poker articles while Sports911 actively promotes Bluff Magazine to its online readers.

"It's very important for us to develop positive synergies with who we consider to be the leaders in other market segments," Costigan said. "Eric Morris is considered a leader in the world of gaming and poker publications so having a solid relationship with his organization gives us a tremendous jump start to tackling what we once considered unfamiliar territory."

Traditionally, Sports911 has prided itself on offering original internally produced content. With online poker and Euro sports gaming, the web publisher will rely heavily on tapping into externally generated material from a variety of respected sources.

"The key difference being this material will serve to compliment everything else we already produce in-house," Costigan explained. "Unlike the majority of other media outlets, Sports911 operates around the clock and offers a wider mixture of content that appeals to poker and Euro sports enthusiasts alike, therefore providing a more centralised source of information."

The site will also feature tools and strategies to help poker players in addition to regular news features.