Despite a bump in the road in its deal with the Danish monopoly Danske Spil in June, PartyGaming told eGaming Review on Friday that its Danish poker offering will be ready to launch on January 1st, 2011.
A spokesman for PartyGaming called the annulment of the Danske Spil partnership simply a “technical blip,” but the company’s CEO, Jim Ryan, is giving “no guarantees” that the New Year’s launch of the Danish platform will be made in conjunction with the nation’s monopoly gambling provider. PartyGaming had inked a five year deal with a new subsidiary of Danske Spil to provide it with online casino and poker games back in January, but Playtech, operator of the iPoker Network, filed a complaint with the Danish Complaints Board for Public Procurement, claiming that the proper process was not followed when PartyGaming and Danske Spil made the deal.
The Board agreed with Playtech, ruling that because neither the Danske Spil subsidiary nor Denmark’s current internet gambling laws existed at the time of the deal, certain rules were circumvented. Both PartyGaming and Danske Spil have said that there was no intent to skirt any legal processes.
PartyGaming sees countries that have legalized online gaming for only residents within their own borders on licensed sites as opportunities to compete with international giants Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. Said Ryan to eGaming Review, “If we look at poker from a dot-com perspective, that is an intensely competitive marketplace and will remain to be a difficult marketplace moving forward.”
He continued, “However, as we move into regulated markets, particularly ring-fenced regulated markets, where competitors can’t bring worldwide liquidity into the equation to compete, we have a level playing field, an opportunity to invest freely in advertising and these factors equal growth.”
According to online poker traffic monitoring site PokerScout.com, PartyPoker is the third largest poker room on the internet, with a seven-day average of 3,550 cash game players. This does not include the players on PartyPoker’s French poker room, PartyPoker.fr, which has averaged an additional 660 cash game players over the past seven days.
PartyPoker’s nemesis in the Danske Spil situation, Playtech, is right behind it in the rankings, as its iPoker Network boasts a seven-day average of 3,350 cash game players. It’s French offering, iPoker.fr, is only hosting 35 cash game players, on average, at this point. PokerStars and Full Tilt lead the way with seven-day averages of 26,200 and 14,400 cash game players, respectively, but keep in mind that they accept American players, while PartyPoker and iPoker do not.
