Focus on Spain

With some 46 million inhabitants and a top 10 global economy, Spain represents one of the major markets on the European continent. Just as importantly, it is also one where operators have been able to work openly and without interference from regional or national authorities. The Spanish gaming authorities have not emulated their French counterparts and carried out bwin- or Unibet-like arrests of chief executives, as was the case for Manfred Bodner and Norbert Teufelberger in 2006 and Petter Nylander in 2007.

Any football fan watching a game from the Primera Liga, the country's top division, will see many of the teams bearing the names of sports betting firms as main shirt sponsors, or stadium hoardings with the logos of online poker companies.

The highest profile of these was between bwin and Spanish football giants Real Madrid, and although this four-year deal has come to an end there are plenty of other operators following in their footsteps. William Hill's logo adorns Malaga's shorts, 12Bet sponsor Sevilla and Unibet have sponsored Valencia since last season. Betfair's name, meanwhile, has regularly been seen on Barcelona's perimeter hoardings at the Nou Camp. The sight of poker companies sponsoring football clubs has been less frequent but they still make their presence felt.

While 888 did sponsor Sevilla before 12Bet and adverts for PartyPoker's Spanish site have been seen at some football grounds in the country, poker firms have stuck to media outlets: print press, TV and online. Chief among those, as ever, one feels like adding, is PokerStars, which broadcasts on Antena3, the second largest private channel in the country, according to Willem Van Oort, chief executive of Gran Via Online, a Barcelona-based online gaming marketing firm.

The Rise of Poker

Poker's presence in Spanish casinos dates back only two years, says Van Oort, even if the battle for market share and exposure is taking place through the country's national media outlets. 'PokerStars has been broadcasting on Antena3 for around 18 months, although the regulatory situation is unclear since direct gambling advertising and related content is not allowed in Spain,' he says.

Van Oort was also chief executive of Rank Interactive's activities in Spain. 'Poker is not that widespread in the country. It is still seen as a somewhat weird game but there is a fairly strong card culture in Spain. The game of 'mus' is reminiscent of poker: cards are dealt and drawn and betting occurs with each round with a lot of bluffing and lying taking place,' he adds.

PokerStars' actions in Spain are reminiscent of its activities in France, where it ran the Stars of Poker TV show on Canal+ without its official logo, although it was clear to anyone with even a little knowledge of the industry that PokerStars was behind it. This didn't go unnoticed by France's TV regulator in April, which said the programme's indirect advertising for the poker company contravened its broadcasting rules in relation to gambling.

The print press is also widely used and PokerStars has been sponsoring a special poker pull-out section in Marca, the Madrid-based sports daily, for the past eight to nine months. Marca outsells all others in Spain, including serious broadsheets such as El Pais. The strategy also mirrors that adopted by Unibet, which had a free supplement in the French edition of the free daily newspaper, Metro. Meanwhile, the joint venture between PartyGaming and CIRSA has seen the launch of the casino and poker site Azartia.com, which also has a sponsored pull-out section in the other major Spanish sports daily, Mundo Deportivo.

A New Perspective

But beyond these high profile media deals, there are age-old problems related to the acceptance of online gaming. For all the advertising and highly visible football shirt sponsorship deals by the online sports betting companies in the past few years, key points such as respectability and trust crop up when experts give their comments on the market.

As Eduardo Sagues, Spain country manager for 888, says, although the game is constantly growing in popularity, 'it is quite a new phenomenon and the market is not mature. There is a lot of work to do because we still face issues such as people not feeling comfortable playing online poker'. In other words, a sizeable chunk of the Spanish population is still not at ease depositing money over the internet.

This is a point echoed by Van Oort: 'Spanish people are still distrustful and reluctant to give their credit card details out over the internet. This is also made worse by the poor localisation efforts of some of the sites. The Spanish versions of some operators' sites are really not good enough, which is why having a presence in print media or on TV is so strong: it gives those operators great visibility, but more importantly, it's a great boost for their credibility.'

Unibet and Mangas Gaming's Everest Poker have also been increasing the profile of live poker in Spain, through the Unibet Poker Open, which has its Spanish leg in Valencia, and the Spanish Poker Tour for Everest. The Spanish Poker Tour has raised the company's profile in the country with events in Ibiza, Sevilla and Castellon among others; and there is no doubt the activity levels of online poker companies are increasing in Spain at the moment.

'The level of our players is increasing significantly and there has been a decrease in the number of fish,' 888's Sagues says. He points to the exponential growth in player numbers and the fact that poker has started to appear on TV and in newspapers, while big Spanish players have become worldwide poker celebrities.

The End Game

It would be remiss of us not to mention Leo Margets, who hails from Barcelona and is sponsored by 888. Margets joined 888 three years ago as marketing manager, started playing poker seriously from that point and is now a brand ambassador for the company. 'Not only is she an ambassador for 888Poker, she has also become the main icon for poker in Spain and one of the most popular players worldwide,' Sagues adds. 'Leo is very much involved in defining the new strategy and look of 888Poker, her role in poker is similar to that of the Gasol brothers in basketball [one plays for the LA Lakers and the other for the Memphis Grizzlies in the NBA] or Rafael Nadal in tennis.'

Although that comment might have a touch of hyperbole about it, it is easy to see why 888 is so optimistic about having such a figurehead as a brand ambassador. Articulate and attractive, Margets is a marketing executive's dream. Furthermore, with the strong tradition of card games in Spain and the fact that a large number of men play other real money games such as bingo, there seems to be more of a balance between male and female players for those types of leisure activities in Spain.

It will be interesting to see if Margets can transcend the gender barrier that is so blatant in poker and really attract a significant number of women to the game in her home country. But even if Spain is a significant poker market in itself, its strategic importance is just as great since it represents the gateway to South America. The poker market there is on the rise, with many of the major operators very active in the region and Brazil very much at the forefront, but whichever operator makes his mark in Iberia has a good chance of making all those efforts pay in the massive market that Latin America constitutes.