No More Paradise Poker

Sportingbet effectively closing down
Paradise Poker Sat, 10 Feb 2007

The British online gambling group
Sportingbet.com has had to make some
tough business decisions regarding its
poker operations, culminating this week
in the announcement that it will effectively
be closing its Paradise Poker.com platform
at a cost of some GBP55 million (US$107million).

The company intends to transfer Paradise
players to its existing Boss Media-managed
Sportingbet poker platform. Facilitating the
move, Sportingbet has extended its contract
with Boss for for a further three years of
both poker and casino services.

Explaining the numbers that led to the decision,
Sportingbet CEO Andrew McIver said in the
three months to October 2006, rake from the
Boss platform amounted to GBP4.3 million,
up 72 percent year-on-year. By comparison,
Paradise Poker generated rake of
GBP3.8 million from non-US players in the
same period, up only 9 percent year-on-year.
Average daily active money players on both
systems amounted to around 6 500, with yield
per active player approximately 60 percent higher
on the Boss platform due to its bigger action.

"This deal combines all our poker players in
one destination, maximizing liquidity whilst
reducing the complexity of running two
separate poker operations. The addition
of the Paradise Poker players to the Boss
poker network will make the Boss network
one of the largest in Europe," McIver explained.

"By combining all poker players in one network
we aim to maximize yields," a spokesman said.
Sportingbet will retain the Paradise poker brand
and migrate all Paradise players to Boss
"in due course" the announcement said.
The combination of the two poker businesses
will provide some cost savings for the group,
however this will be offset to some extent by
the loss of revenue that may occur as a result
of migrating players from one platform to another.

Investor reaction to the move will not be
long in coming - Sportingbet will announce its
results for the second quarter on 28 February.
The deal is good news for Boss Media.
Johan Berg, Chief Executive Officer said:
"The partnership with Sportingbet is material
to the success of Boss Media and is one very
important reason that we are one of the leading
providers of e-Gaming software. The strengthened
partnership will enable the two companies to work
together to bring second to none e-Gaming
products to the market."