Bwin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- The correct title of this article is bwin. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
| 'bwin' | |
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| Type of Company | Public limited company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1999 (Austria) |
| Headquarters | Vienna |
| Key people | Manfred Bodner, CEO Norbert Teufelberger, CEO |
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Products | sports betting, online gambling |
| Website | www.bwin.com |
The bwin (WBAG: BWIN) Group, formerly Betandwin.com (until 2006), is an Austrian based online gambling company with over 10 million registered customers. The group operates under international and regional licences in countries like Gibraltar, the Amerindian reserve of Kahnawake (Canada), Belize and Germany, Italy, Mexico, Austria and the United Kingdom. The Group offers sports betting, poker, casino games and soft games with most revenue coming from poker and sportsbetting. Competence centres are located in Vienna, Austria, Stockholm, Sweden and Gibraltar.[1]
The parent company, bwin Interactive Entertainment AG, has been listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange since March 2000. The Company provides services for its subsidiaries such as marketing, finance and administration, corporate communications, controlling and IT services. All operational activities are managed by licensed subsidiaries.
On the 15 September 2006, Norbert Teufelberger and Manfred Bodner were surprisingly arrested [2] at a press conference in Monaco due to offenses against the French gamble laws. After an investigation the judge released the pair on the evening the 18 September 2006.
As of October 2006, bwin no longer takes bets from United States players, due to the signing of the Safe Port Act.[3]
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[edit] Services provided
bwins largest sector of their current bussines is within the live sports betting arena, followed by online poker, casino games and various other skill games. According to their website they can provide over 8000 bets a day in more than 80 sports.
[edit] Ongame
The Ongame group was founded in 1999 by two Uppsala University students Oskar Hornell and Claes Lidell. In 2005 Ongame e-solutions AB was named IT Company of the Year 2005 by the Swedish business weekly Veckans Affärer. In 2006 bwin acquired the Swedish gaming company Ongame e-solutions AB, operators of its flagship sites PokerRoom.com and CasinoRoom.com.
Ongame also runs several other brands which allow for real and play money formats, these include PokerGaming.com, PokerRoom.tv, HoldemPoker.com, EuroPoker.com, eCardroom.com which was designed for the Chinese Poker playing community outside of China, and they also run ecardroom.cn which is designed for use with in China.
[edit] PokerRoom.com
PokerRoom.com is an online poker cardroom founded in 1999. Licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, PokerRoom offers both play and real money formats. Tournaments and ring games are available in both web-browser and download client platforms, with support for both Macintosh and Linux.
[edit] Avatars
Through out the year players will notice that the avatars used will change costumes to reflect the seasons holidays, for example during Halloween the avatars will all dress in various traditional Halloween attire and the same can be noticed at Christmas.
[edit] Legal Issues
PokerRoom also maintains a play money only site, PokerRoom.tv, that is advertised in Canada on the boards of NHL rinks, as well as on US television networks like ABC.
[edit] Awards
PokerRoom has won industry awards such as Poker Site of the Year from the UK Gambling Awards in 2006 and Top Poker Software from the Online Gambling Magazine Awards in 2005.
[edit] Mobile
In 2005 Ongame became one of the first within its industry to develop and release a fully working mobile software version of its poker software available in both play money and real money. Later in 2006 it later went onto to develop a version of mobile blackjack.
[edit] CasinoRoom.com
CasinoRoom.com offers casino games such as blackjack and slots.
[edit] Sponsorship
A large part of bwins promotional campaign is involved in the sponsoring of various sports, including [basketball], football, motor sports and many others.
[edit] MotoGP
In 2006 bwin was a main sponsor of the MotoGP motorcycle league.
[edit] Football sponsorship
As of the 2006-2007 season, the bwin logo may be found on the front of the shirts of German powerhouse Werder Bremen (as "bwin.de") and German Second Bundesliga team TSV 1860 Munich (as "we win!"), as well as on the shirts of the legendary Italian club, AC Milan. In France, the bwin logo is present on the shirts of AS Monaco, in Portugal bwin is the major sponsor of the Portuguese league and in Spain bwin is currently sponsoring the FC Barcelona team.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Google Finance: bwin Interactive Entertainment AG
- ^ Online gambling bosses arrested in France via the Guardian
- ^ bwin: US SAFE Port Act signed into law by President George W. Bush
