Celeb Poker Wins UK Award

[Manne]

In excess of four million UK individuals gamble online each month, and since 2003 the amount staked online has risen dramatically by over 550%. Actuarial forecasting shows that this growth is set to continue into 2006 topping off around the World Series of Poker in July. This phenomenal growth in remote gambling, in particular through the birth of online casinos and poker-rooms, has taken everyone by surprise and there has been no shortage of companies trying to benefit from the boom. It seems that new poker sites pop up on almost a daily basis, with new TV shows about poker being produced by most major networks. With such possible saturation in the market place Business Britain, having extensively covered the development of the online gaming market over the last 18 months, has taken it upon themselves to access the ever-increasing number of companies in the online gaming sector.

There was again an extensive list of criteria that was drawn up, which subsequently had to be met by participants. A team of investigative journalists were assembled, their role to draw up main points that we could base our research on. The criteria consisted of a number of different areas, and were based on a points scoring basis with the main points of interest being:

Ease of use of site and game play

Efficiency of payment transactions

Help line and guidance for gambling issues

Security and supervision of site

Table and tournament options

Prize money of tournaments based on *value

Customer Support and response time

Graphics and artwork of site and players

Poker community, appropriateness to Business Britain's readers

Company Ethics

Following months of careful research, trials and assessment we can now proudly reveal our findings; The Award for the Leading Online Gaming Company of 2005/2006 is presented to CelebPoker.com

In the past six months CelebPoker.com has seen growth in traffic and players towards the upwards of 600 percent and is the most realistic, vastly growing and ambitious poker room online. Having opened its tables in April of 2004, the poker world was introduced to a celebrity based, interactive poker room where they could log on and play games with stars they would never have the opportunity to mingle with anywhere else. We have found that creating value to the player is what separates good poker rooms from great ones and CelebPoker.com provides the most realistic poker experience you can have online. CelebPoker.com was recently awarded "Best Communication" to players by Top Pair Magazine April 2006.

Mirroring the success CelebPoker.com had on the European front in 2005, an equivalent amount of market share was gained in America during the same period. Being seen as the premier global celebrity poker room, CelebPoker.com was asked to deal the cards backstage at the World Music Awards show in Los Angeles in August. As the obvious choice for online celebrity poker play, CelebPoker.com was there teaching new celebrity players how Internet poker works, as well as sharing stories of poker exhilaration with current A-List celebrity players.

The brand recognition and word of mouth advertising of Celebpoker spread quickly through the US during summer 2005. The news starting in Hollywood made its way down to poker players online and offline alike. When the prestigious American Music Awards show was held in Los Angeles in late November, CelebPoker.com was asked yet again to come again to and draw the cards with Hollywood's elite. The play continued throughout the awards and poker was played both online at CelebPoker.com as well as on the felt in front of the theatre. Multiple US magazines and television stations were present to catch the Celebpoker action.