Domain Name Sale Record £25,000 for poker.org.uk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) June 23, 2011 -- With over 210 million registered internet domain name in active service, top level domain names are becoming increasingly scarce. This makes easily identifiable names very valuable virtual real estate. As of June 2011, there were only 255 legal internet domain name suffixes such as .com or .uk. The sale of the domain “Poker.org.uk” for £25,000 ($40 000 usd) from the broker company Sedo is not only the most expensive sale of the .org.uk suffix on record, but yet another in a series of highly lucrative gambling related domain name sales.

Not surprisingly, sex, sin and beer rank high in terms of the all-time highest priced domain name sales. The most expensive domain name sale to date is for sex.com, which sold for $13 million dollars, followed by the somewhat generic sounding fund.com, which was auctioned off for $10 million dollars. Beer.com, casino.com and slots.com round out the top seven, with respective sales prices of $7, $5.5, and $5.5 million dollars. Gambling.com sold for $2.5 million dollars, while poker.org sold for $1 million. From these figures, it’s clear that the gambling industry is a major player in terms of being able to command fairly steep prices for generic sounding domain names.

While .com and .org have always been favored suffixes, country suffixes are becoming a much hotter property as all of the feasible high level .com names are snapped up by savvy corporations. ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has proposed a plan to add more suffixes that are specific to particular places or companies, such as .newyork for the city, or .Xerox for the copy machine manufacturer. It is possible that in another few years the specialized suffix .poker or even .gambling will come into existence, which could lead to a renewed round of frenzied bidding. For now, however, regional suffixes are still a highly sought after class of suffixes. When paired with a high powered suffix such as .org, a website establishes itself as a leader in its particular field or industry.

Unlike its competitors, Poker.org.uk distinguishes itself by being one of the few generic domain names to tie itself to a particular locality. Unlike the larger .com suffixes, Poker.org.uk may have a better shot at dominating regional poker matches and clubs because of its specificity.

As of now, the Poker.org.uk extension will be used as a poker room directory for the U.K. This will allow the site to grow and attract millions of potential users who wish to find games being played nearby or with fellow UK citizens. Because of the nature of gambling, playing in the same currency with the same set of regional rules is an advantage for a gaming site. People rarely want to feel as if they are an insignificant player in an enormous, million-person game. Instead, individual players value being made to feel as if they are a unique part of a specialized experience.

Poker.org.uk also serves as an excellent way for smaller sites to join forces and create a larger, more profitable association of regionally based gambling related websites. By creating a hub of gambling sites, Poker.org.uk will become a focal point for gambling in one of the richest nations on earth. As one of the most prestigious domain names of its kind, Poker.org.uk will undoubtedly become a trend-setter for other regions of the world that wish to capitalize on rapidly shrinking recognizable internet domain names.

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