Asia and Chinese Markets

[Jeremy]

I was actually going to write an article about this, but it's easier to just make a post. Besides it 1:30 on Friday and I want to go golfing and start my weekend.

While in Amsterdam all I heard was "We're going to China", especially from the event organizer. Likewise all I ever hear anymore is how lucrative the Asian markets are and how their going to get even larger.

Perhaps some of you saw my post in the PAW Network area about Casino Fraud....fair enough, but this isn't really the reason I am making this post. I'd just like to set the record straight, and publicly state that Asia isn't all it's cracked up to be.

In fact I have news for everybody, China and Asia suck if you're an operator and not already embedded in that culture somehow. No not just because PAW has seen fraud from there, but because even the biggest online casino in the world couldn't get past the player and affiliate fraud in that market.

I talked to one of the execs from a major online casino (think pink bunny) that spent millions of dollars going to Asia, set up support centers, spent millions on marketing, etc.

And even they were shocked at just how bad the bonus abuse, player fraud, and affiliate fraud was. So bad that operating in that market was a losing proposition and it made sense to chalk it up as a loss. And yes, you guessed it, they pulled out and no longer service players or affiliates from these areas.

Of course there are tremendously rich ballers there that will drop millions in Macau on a baccarat session, but for each of these guys, there are 1000 either poor or savvy individuals in these countries looking to make a quick buck or scam the online gaming operators.

There, I said my peace. I am just so sick and tired of hearing how fantastic the Asian market is from people who have absolutely no clue.

If you want a great new market, look in places like Germany and Russia or even parts of the Nordic countries.

[Kyle]

I totally agree. Over a year ago 5 of my friends all moved to China to teach English for a nice opportunity one of their dad's had rolling. I almost went too until I found out the 2 months contract turned into 2 years and these guys loved every bit of it so there was no turning back. I just couldn't be in China for that long.

Since a couple of my buddies who left had recently tried me to get them into poker affiliating, we decided to attack the Chinese market by doing off line promotions in Macau. We set up some bs poker portal named magikpoker.com or something like that but what they found was they were blocked from nearly every single major poker room. Their ISP would not even let them access them so there is your first problem. I shortly aborted the mission and in time they let it go too.

The second problem that you said is so very true. Fraud is huge in these countries, in every industry not just poker. If someone puts down $200 on their credit card in a poor town in China and loses it at the casino you can bet your ass they will be charging back at a much higher rate than those in the western culture because $200 American is worth a lot more in China.

I am in no means racist and living in Toronto have grown up with many Asian friends. But I feel I need to further prove why I think it is a bad market. Years ago, when I was 17 or so, I ran multiple PTR (paid to read email) sites. The payouts for the members in these type of operations are very low < $10 and the owner reaps all the benefits because of the setup. The amount of fraud from China and other parts of Asia, however, was ridiculous. Now you have to consider that they were trying to scam me for $10 a pop.... and payment was once a month! I literally had hundreds of scammers pass through and it was dead easy to catch them too... That being said, I can only imagine that casino fraud from these countries would be through the roof, as a) the reward is much greater and b) you often do get paid out when bonus hunting on casinos.