Bodog, the Costa Rica-based egaming giant, has launched its play-for-free dotnet poker site as it continues to step up its poker marketing in the US.
The firm hit the headlines recently when adverts for its site in Esquire magazine led to the magazine receiving subpoenas from the US Department of Justice.
That advertising was dropped from the magazine, but Bodog has pressed ahead with TV ads for its real-money dotcom domain.
And the firm said despite the launch of the dotnet site, it would not stop advertising its real-money dotcom domain.
“The two new 30-second commercials we shot a few weeks back have dotcom and dotnet versions,” Calvin Ayre, chief executive of Bodog, said.
“We will roll out the dotnet if we are blocked with a dotcom version in any of the deals we do,” he added.
Dotnet sites have been the subject of massive advertising drives in 2005, as they give operators the best route around US advertising restrictions.
And Bodog alone is planning on spending US$50m advertising its poker site in the US through print, radio and TV advertisements.
Ayre previously said he expected to be a top-five poker site within the next 18 months on the back of the relaunch of its poker software in September.
“We are set for explosive growth this season in poker and our other channels,” Ayre said.
source : egr magazine
