Offshoring gambling may not work
(Visited 4344 times)Aug 092007
The UK is banning offshore gambling from advertising in the UK if the host countries don’t meet UK standards. So much for the generic “just offshore it!” solution. After all, no marketing means less users, which means less viable businesses… especially in a crowded market space.
4 Responses to “Offshoring gambling may not work”
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Of course this also strengthens the UK’s intermittent goal to be the home for these businesses!
– “Ya wanna advertise? move your business here!”
It will be interesting to see what the EU take is on this (as well as the WTO) as this could be used by any country to limit competition from foreign firms in any regulated market.
But this is online gambling. I think the only impact is how long it takes them to reach the numbers they want. Without direct marketing it takes longer to get the message out, but gambling has amazing stickiness unto itself.
Which is a shame, really.
Perhaps offshore sites will simply seek to redefine the standard definition of advertising? I’m thinking, of course, of those creative campaigns run by Gold Farmers in WoW.
EU countries are a permitted jurisdiction, so I doubt they’ll say anything about it.