Yahoo! Offers Real-Money Poker

Now that Yahoo! UK and Ireland has made the leap into real-money online poker, other online poker rooms are scrambling to weather what’s sure to be a raging storm of competition. As one expert put it, “The established gaming sites such as Party Gaming and 888 will be concerned, and if they are not, they should be.”

So why all the uproar? It may have a little something to do with the fact that Yahoo! Gets 20.7 million unique visitors per month and has a trusted brand which will no doubt attract customers in countries friendly to online gambling.

The United Kingdom and Ireland have around 64 million citizens combined. Yahoo! UK and Ireland have an audience about one-third that size, and it’s growing all the time. Even if they only signed up 0.5% of their visitors, that would be enough to register over 100,000 poker players online. That number would immediately place them in such lofty company as PokerStars and Party Poker. And Yahoo Poker is certainly aiming for more than 0.5%.

Yahoo started testing the waters two years ago with the introduction of real-money bingo. Even without using affiliates to get traffic, the endeavor has been wildly successful.

Industry analysts say that the other Internet giants are keeping a close eye on this development. If it is successful - and there’s no reason to believe that it won’t be - it may not be long before we see AOL, Microsoft, Google and Ebay getting in on the real-money action.

It could also force land-based casinos to break into the online market in an effort to compete. In December, The Sands announced their plans to open a Las Vegas-based online casino for UK customers. And the World Poker Tour has already signed with software provider Cryptologic to open an online poker room in Europe.

Yahoo Poker is part of the International Poker Network, which is currently the 12th largest poker network on the Internet. At the moment, the IPN has an average of 1,603 cash players per day compared to between 5,000 and 8,000 for sites like PokerStars. With the addition of Yahoo and all the traffic it will attract, however, the numbers for IPN are expected to rise in the very near future.

Rest assured that we’ll report on any new developments in this story.

Yahoo! Offers Real-Money Poker