Earlier this week it was reported that National A-1 sold the domain name Poker.org via Sedo brokerage for $1 million USD. This shatters the highest ever .org sale which was previously $198,000 for the domain engineering.org. The purchaser, PokerCompany.com said this in a press release: “Poker.org is an integral part of our growth strategy, and will provide great dividends now and into the future..” PokerCompany.com is a online poker super affiliate, which means they work with the biggest gaming sites online, driving them thousands of new real money players each month through their gaming portals. PokerCompany also has several category killers domain names like blackjack.org, craps.net, rakeback.org and loyalty.net. Each of these sites are tailored to drive affiliate leads to one of the gaming sites that advertise with PokerCompany. Once the transfer is complete and PokerCompany.com is in possession of poker.org I am almost expecting to see a cookie cutter site on it that looks just like blackjack.org and craps.net.
Whether Poker.org will pay for itself and convert millions of dollars of affiliate revenue for PokerCompany.com is a question we will probably never know the answer to. Do I think it was a good acquisition for PokerCompany.com? Not really, mostly because I think they could have spent a tenth of that on a great .com with targeted traffic, etc. Unless they are going to do some major rebranding around this new acquisition the purchase price was hefty, but I am very happy for the implications and press it brings the domain sector. Word of this sale being talked about in almost every major poker publication, this is good press for the domain industry for two reasons. First, obviously the press sheds more light on domain names and extensions other than .com being a valuable asset. Secondly, most poker players are entrepreneurs at heart. I know several professional poker players that are into domaining and I think that we will see more poker players find interest in domain investing when they hear of this kind of sale.
This is just the begining – the domain name $ value will go up.
Many people sell their domain names for a quick buck (small $$) on mass auctions that are being held by moniker and others…
Also the what I call crap domain name appraisal sites like estibot on which many people base their so called domain name value makes no sense (many so called domain name experts are no experts at all).
My advice to domain name owners is do not sell your internet real estate for next to no $$ (hold on and stay positive – when the right buyer comes along U will make the real $$)
insightful post. How much do you think rakeback affects the monthly profitibility of poker players playing SNGs?