Online Poker Industry Bets

This week, we compiled a few propositions that we think make for interesting bets to make on the online poker industry. In our poker world futures bets for the new decade article, we used American style odds. This article will use fractional and decimal odds. Will bwin and Party Poker merge by December 31st, 2010? Yes: 4.00 No: 1.33 Rumors of this potential merger are making waves in the online gaming sector in 2010. Will the U.S. Department of Justice arrest any owners or operators of an online poker room before December 31st 2011? Yes: 6.50 No: 1.16 This seems pretty unlikely. If the DOJ was going to target online poker operators, chances are they would have done it by now. When will an online poker room release a software update containing a game similar to Full Tilt Poker's Rush Poker tables? Over/under: December 31, 2010 So far, Full Tilt's Rush Poker tables have been a moderate success. They're slowly but surely attracting an increasing number of players. It would not be surprising to see another major online poker room copy the idea by the year's end. Something that makes the over in this bet appealing is the complicated nature of the Rush Poker software. There's no knowing for sure how long it took Full Tilt to implement that feature. Who knows, maybe they worked on it for two years meaning any copy-cat room will face a similar building period. Will Party Poker or the iPoker network (Titan Poker) move the majority off their games from dollars to euros or pounds before Dec 31, 2011? Keep in dollars: 1.33 Euros: 5.25 Pounds: 12.00 Games in differing currencies are becoming more and more commonplace at online poker sites. There's really no reason for non-US facing sites like Party Poker or Titan Poker to even offer games in U.S. dollars. The primary reason they have not yet switched is probably just because of inertia. Which site will have the larger '24 Hour Peak' on August 14th 2010, six months from the date this article was published, according to Poker Scout? Party Poker: 1.5 iPoker: 3.00 As of now, the two sites are in a virtual dead-heat. However, a potential merger with bwin makes Party Poker a decent-sized favorite on this bet. Will Poker News Daily attain a higher Alexa rank than Poker News anytime between now and the end of 2011? Yes: 6.00 No: 1.20 For years, PokerNews.com has been the go-to source online for poker news. However, in the past several months, Poker News Daily has been establishing itself as a premier contender for lead poker news market share. At the time of the publication of this article, PokerNews.com had an Alexa rank of ~7,000 while PokerNewsDaily.com had an Alexa rank of ~36,000. Will Rounders 2 be released in the U.S. before December 31st, 2013? Yes: 1.50 No: 3.00 There's been some talk of a potential sequel to the legendary poker film Rounders. The release is starting to seem like a pretty good possibility sometime in the next couple of years. The question is, will Mike McDermott be an energy drink addict who 15 tables online poker in this version?