Popular industry magazine eGaming Review gave out its annual awards, pinpointing 19 companies as the best in online gaming for this year.
The big winner of the year was Ladbrokes with three awards: Affiliate program of the year, Multi-channel operator of the year and UK sportsbook of the year.
PartyGaming – home of Party Poker – was next with two awards: Socially responsible operator of the year and the coveted Operator of the year award; this last award has been won by PartyGaming twice in three years. John O’Malia, Managing Director of PartyGaming, said when accepting the Operator of Year award:
Our awards are an endorsement from across the industry for our endeavours to provide great entertainment. Acting responsibility is one of the four main pillars of our business strategy, because we want all of our customers to play on our sites for the right reason – to enjoy great entertainment and play within their means.
Everest Poker was another big winner, nabbing Poker operator of the year for the second year in a row. Everest Poker’s spokesman Ed Pownall told Poker News Daily some of the reasons why Everest Poker won this award:
I think our accessibility to all levels of players is what makes us so appealing – for instance all our sponsored players are sourced from our own database, not simply picking out the big names and throwing money at them. We believe a team should be developed rather than bought! Equally we are one of very few poker websites that are not part of a bigger network resulting in full control of all aspects of the site – and this shows.
Betfair was named Green operator of the year; Poker News Daily asked Betfair’s Corporate Social Responsibility Executive, Georgina Corbett, about this distinction; this is what she told us:
We have a vision to be a leading online business in the area of environmental responsibility and have therefore set ambitious targets to achieve this. Whilst we are at the early stages of our journey, we are proud of our achievements so far and take this award as recognition of our vision.
Last but not least, young up-and-coming poker site PKR bowled everyone over and took the Hotshot operator of the year award. Erika Schwartz, PKR’s Marketing Manager, told Poker News Daily how it feels to win such an important industry recognition so soon: “It feels fantastic, as this was only our second year of operation. To make such an impact in such a short time is something we are very proud of.” She added:
We try to be constantly innovative, and are always striving to make the experience of playing at PKR better and better. We really listen to our customers and in doing so have created one of the best communities in poker. Our aim is to continue to move forward and offer the most interactive and enjoyable place to play poker on the internet.
This is the complete list of the 2008 eGaming Review Industry Awards winners:
- Innovation of the year – PurePlay
- Online marketing campaign of the year – Cashcade
- Affiliate program of the year – Ladbrokes
- Multi-channel operator of the year – Ladbrokes
- Mobile operator of the year – Blue Square
- Offline marketing campaign of the year – Betfair
- Land-links partnership of the year – 888.com
- Hotshot operator of the year – PKR
- Green operator of the year – Betfair
- Asian operator of the year – AsianLogic
- Latin American operator of the year – BetCris
- Socially responsible operator of the year – PartyGaming
- Bingo operator of the year – 888.com
- UK sportsbook of the year – Ladbrokes
- European sportsbook of the year – Unibet
- Casino operator of the year – 888.com
- Poker operator of the year – Everest Gaming
- Outstanding contribution – John Anderson
- Operator of the year – PartyGaming
