Many changes in the industry and elsewhere ... and I was silent. So, in short:

1. Tradal (Empire Online) is going thru some internal changes. Are they good? well, time will tell (and I will also tell you later on). Several (excellent) people were let go and I feel really bad for them but I am sure that they will do great elsewhere - they are extraordinary people. The business is shrinking so we had no other choice. Were the right people let go? well, time will tell (and I will also tell you later on).

Oh no ... I am not a broken record ... the above is not a CTRL+C error... :-)

2. DNDN, my favorite stock has recently posted 2 new great PRs regarding their Provenge drug. More and more signs that the FDA will decide whether to approve Provenge by the middle of 2007. All clinical data is in - and it is showing excellent survival results for the Prostate Cancer patients. If approved, this will be a blockbuster drug (over $1 billion revenue) and the company will eventually be worth north of $5 BILLION. It is now traded at less than $400MM - so it is as if Wall Street give Provenge only a mere 7% approval chances.

If anyone is a trader/investor, I would URGE you to read more about DNDN (check the leading message boards, especially in www.investorsvillage.com) and learn more. Obviously, you guys are welcome to contact me here with any questions that you may have.

Note that I have mentioned DNDN when it was $4.40. It is $4.88 today, and it is going to be either $50 or $2 within the next year. There are few such amazing opportunities out there (the likelyhood for $50 is at least 50%, IMHO) - though a risk of losing 50% of your money is also here.

As mentioned before, DNDN is my favorite stock which I follow way over a year. Not sure if all of you are familiar with DNDN's story, so here is a quick recap:

DNDN (Dendreon Corporation; www.dendreon.com) is a biotech company. It's leading drug candidate is Provenge, which is the FIRST CANCER VACCINE that treats prostate cancer.

I am not a big scientific expert, but in short, Provenge is "custom made" per patient. The urologist takes the patient's white blood cells and sends it to DNDN's lab. The white blood cells (the body's basic immune system) goes thru a 72-hours "studying" process to "educate" it how to attack the specific tumor cells of the prostate cancer. After 72 hours, the "educated" white blood cells are sent back to the clinic and then being injected to the patient. End of scientific story.

This process enhances the patient's immune system - it is now well equiped to fight the Prostate Cancer (PC).

Like every other drug, Provenge went into thorough clinical test studies (called phases 1-2-3). All studies are over, results are out. The studies show that 35% of the patients that received Provenge were alive after 3 years, whereas 11% of the placebo (patients that receive nothing) patients were alive after this time period. These results are LIKELY to be sufficient for the FDA to approve Provenge for marketing in the US.

The clinical studies described above were conducted to AIPC (late stage Prostate Cancer) - there are 50,000 such patients every year in the US. A typical new-generation cancer drug costs today $40,000 (yes, insurance companies cover it). So ... the market potential is $2,000,000,000 (2 billion USD).

Competition exists - this is a chemotherapy treatment called Taxotere (costs $40,000/patient). No need to describe the side effects of chemotherapy - and Taxotere is among the strongest ones. Over 50% of the patients prefer not to take Taxotere. On the other hand, Provenge is a NATURAL treatment - it is based on the patient's own white blood cells - its side effects are ONLY cold and chills for 1-2 days.

What happens next (and why did I post about DNDN today)?

1. The FDA decides whether to approve or reject a drug based on the submission of a BLA (Biologic License Application). This is a 500,000-page document that the applying company has to submit to the FDA after they conclude the clinical trial (and much more).

2. Historically, 75% of the companies that submit a BLA get the marketing approval

3. Once approved, Dendreon can start sell Provenge.

What will happen to DNDN's share price upon approval?

This is the big question - here is what ~should~ happen:

1. Typically, a biotech company with an approved drug is traded at 5-10 times REVENUES

2. One can assume that Provenge can easily be a "blockbuster drug" (a drug that sells over $1 billion/year). So a market cap of $5 billion is not unthinkable.

Where are we today?

Right now, DNDN is traded at $4.25 that represents a market cap of $300 million. Yes ... less then 10% of the expected price IF the FDA approves Provenge. In other words, the "market" gives less than 10% change that the FDA will approve a revolutionary drug that shows significant survival benefit and significantly less side effects than today's only other alternative (the chemotherapy).

Why do I post this today - DNDN "promised" to announce the submission of the BLA by the end of August. This news is likely to cause a nice price pop for DNDN very soon.

Why is DNDN is undervalued? hmmmm... this is a great question and is worthy another long post - but a VERY interesting one. Please post a comment that you are interested in more DNDN blurb and I will be happy to get into more details.

I am "All In" here - NEVER ever buy/sell shares before YOU do your own research. Never trust anyone - the above is only my opinion.

Maintaining good relationship with the Affiliates is the key to the Operator's Agent success. This is more than a typical supplier-customer relationship - the Operator is indeed the supplier, but the Affiliate is not a regular customer. He is also a supplier.

There is a lot of money involved in these relationships. Sometimes a lot of money. Both parties have to be very sensitive in the way that this money is being split - both want more, but one cannot make tons of money while the other barely breaks even. The key for mutual success is the understanding that both parties must make money - this will hold the relationship for the long run.

Here is an interesting story that happened last month. One of my affiliates (a very large poker portal, well known in the industry) told me, off the record, that he has a problem with one of the large operators (sorry, no names...) and asked for my advice. The Operator owes him WAY over $20,000 (commission), but he does not receive the money for over a month. The Operator keeps promising "next week", "next week" - but he doesn't see the money.

The Affiliate is "this" close to post the story in some leading blogs - badmouthing the Operator. I am working closely with this Affiliate for a long time and he is very trustworthy. His story seems reliable.

I told him to shut up and wait more. Too much money was at stake and badmouthing the Operator won't help him get the money - only make things worse. I told him to be patient a little longer, not even hint that he is about to post this story.

He received the money in the following week.

We have just launched Enter Casino.

As most of you know, PlayTech has the best online casinos out there, and Enter is the newest of them all. Pay a visit - www.entercasino.com and let me know how you find it. I really like the spinning roulette on our home page - didn't see anything like this in other casino room.

The first days following the launch were great - as we managed to attract many of our existing poker and casino players to check this new casino. We are also offering EXCELLENT deals to our existing affiliates as well to new affiliates so that as many web users will check Enter - it is worthy to be a casino affiliate - you make MUCH more money then being a poker affiliate (feel free to contact me for more info).

There are only a handfull of good casino portals out there. I find www.lodecasino.com as one of THE best ones. It has the best design (IMHO), and it contains a lot of valuable content. Their up and coming casino-ranking systems worth checking.

I will be on vacation thru the middle of August - so there will be little activities on this blog in the coming days. However, there is a very interesting story that one of my affiliates is involved with (regarding another poker room), and once it is over, I will tell you about it.

Wherever there is money, there is fraud.

There is a lot of money in the (online) casino business, and we are always on alert for possible fraud. We are using both computerized systems as well as human analysis of any potential fraud.

Some of the obvious fraud attempts will be in CPA deals - an affiliates drives a couple of players, they make small deposits, play a couple of hands, and then withdraw the money. Is the affiliate eligible for his CPA?

We built a very sophisticated system based on our 8 years of experience. It is amazing that the crooks often use very similar methods, and in most cases, we are right on target. I have a VERY interesting story about an affiliate that brought dozens of players in less then 3 weeks - he has a MySpace page - he is not my friend ... ;-)

I will write about his case in the future.

I recently had a fraud issue with C, the webmaster of RefreshPoker. We are working together for several months. We just missed a face to face meeting in the recent CAC (Amsterdam). From day one, he seemed like a honest person. He was not our largest affiliate, but we have exchanged emails from time to time.

Over a week ago he complained that he is driving traffic to us, but that he cannot find it in our stats. I hate reading these types of emails - I am doing my best to make my affiliates comfortable. I checked his site and he was correct - we changed our deal, but I forgot to add the details of his new tracker to his Tradal.net account. Obviously, the tracker (for our Monaco Gold Casino) kept recording data, but he could not see it for months.

On the very same week, we had the first casino player coming from his tracker. The player made a deposit, played a couple of minor games, and withdrew the money.

I received an alret at the end of the month from our Fraud Department. It didn't look right to them. They have asked me to look into this deal. They were right, the deal looked bad.

I contacted C, in the most polite way, telling him that something could be wrong and that we may not pay his CPA for such a "player". I have sending this types of emails to long-term buddies - but I had too.

Here is his reply:

As discussed before, I am often being asked whether we, the Affiliate Managers, play online poker. I do, some do, some don't.

We must be on top of new things in the industry, so we register to the leading poker rooms and check pretty much everything. Didn't you notice that the better innitiative of poker room "A" is being quickly "adopted" by poker rooms "B", "C" and "D" ... and then the others?

One of my accounts is with Party (yeah, yeah ...;-). Since I made a small deposit a while back, PartyGaming is kind enough to retain me as a player by sending me $20 from time to time. In most cases, I lose this money quickly, but last time I was fortunate (skillful???) to build a nice bankroll.

So ... I decided to move up from the $0.50/$1 limit tables to the $1/$2 tables, and one of my first hands was none other then the following (I have changed my Party name here to "alonso9"):

***** Hand History for Game *****

$1/$2 Texas Hold'em

Table Wild Rides (Real Money)

Seat 1 is the button

Total number of players : 6

Seat 1: Tomper ( $35.25 )

Seat 2: poker888222 ( $24 ) -- VERY LOOSE PLAYER

Seat 4: Staner78 ( $7.21 )

Seat 5: ansoni ( $46.50 )

Seat 6: alonso9 ( $39.50 )

Seat 3: EliteMe ( $50 )

poker888222 posts small blind [$0.50].

EliteMe posts big blind [$1].

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to alonso9 [  6c 7c ]

Staner78 calls [$1].

ansoni calls [$1].

alonso9 calls [$1]. (what the heck)

Tomper calls [$1].

poker888222 raises [$1.50].

EliteMe calls [$1].

Staner78 calls [$1].

ansoni calls [$1].

alonso9 calls [$1].

Tomper calls [$1].

** Dealing Flop ** [ 7h, 7d, 2h ]

hmmm... a set ... :-)

poker888222 bets [$1].

EliteMe calls [$1].

Staner78 raises [$2].

what is going on here?

ansoni folds.

alonso9 calls [$2].

Tomper folds.

poker888222 calls [$1].

EliteMe calls [$1].

** Dealing Turn ** [ 9h ]

poker888222 checks.

EliteMe checks.

Staner78 bets [$2].

alonso9 calls [$2].

poker888222 raises [$4].

EliteMe raises [$6].

Staner78 is all-In  [$1.21]

oh gee... getting interesting ... re-raise or let them run after the straight?

alonso9 calls [$4].

poker888222 raises [$4].

EliteMe calls [$2].

alonso9 calls [$2].

** Dealing River ** [ 7s ]

SWEET RIVER ... :-)

poker888222 bets [$2].

EliteMe calls [$2].

alonso9 raises [$4].

come-on, raise, raise!!!

poker888222 calls [$2].

EliteMe calls [$2].

alonso9 shows [ 6c, 7c ] four of a kind, sevens.

poker888222 doesn't show [ 9d, 9c ] a full house, Nines full of sevens.

EliteMe doesn't show [ Qh, Jh ] a flush, queen high.

Staner78 doesn't show [ 3h, 3c ] a full house, Sevens full of threes.

alonso9 wins $26.37 from  side pot #1  with four of a kind, sevens.

alonso9 wins $31.84 from  the main pot  with four of a kind, sevens.

ansoni has left the table.

Time to move on and blog about it ...

We co-managed an Online Poker Survey with one of our major affiliates - www.holdem-surveys.com. The purpose of this campaign was to learn more about online poker players - and as a gesture - they have received $5, real money, to play in Noble Poker.

We learned a lot from this Survey. One of the most interesting finding was the fact that most players play in 2-3 different poker rooms (12% claim to be playing in over 5 rooms), nearly 50% play daily and that another 35% play 3-5 times a week. Another (expected) but interesting finding was that there is pretty much equal number of players who prefer playing STG, tournaments, cash tables and freerolls. We broke down this information into sub-groups, but we will have to keep it internally.

I did not expect many players to refer to the final open question - but many did - as we wanted to know what they are looking for in poker rooms. Some of the requests: chat, calculators, more bonuses,  more freerolls and porn. Well, no surprises...

Our affiliate network is our key success factor. They are our retailers. They drive most of our new players. They interact with their/our players. They know what their players are looking for and they know a lot about the poker business. Most of them are also excellent players.

We ought to keep excellent relationship with our affiliates and we want to keep them happy, well, actually very happy. When our affiliate makes money - we (usually) make money. This is "almost" a win-win situation, unless an affiliates tries to over-exploit his power. As an affiliate manager, I need to manouver within this fine line.

The experienced affiliates understand where we are coming from, know our challenges and are looking for long term relationships. Ad-hoc deals are not interesting. There is no point in spending a lot of time inking a short-term deal for a couple of players. My goal is to build close personal relationship with my affiliates, listen to their concerns, try helping them when needed, and help them help me.

The better affiliates prefer to get a slightly lower deal from me, in comparison to our competitors (the other poker rooms), while knowing that they get prompt and honset replies to any problem that they face (and there are always such problems).

Dealing with new affiliates requires higher alert from the Affiliate Manager. We do not know the new affiliate. We have to assure that he is not trying to exploit the operator. "Interesting" cases happen here and there - I will write about some of these cases in the future. But since this is only the beginning of the blog - I am ~still~ nice to everyone... ;-)

Poker is not all in (my) life. I had a rather disappointing weekend seeing Argentina, England and Brazil all losing in the quarter finals of the World Cup. Oh well...

On the positive side, DNDN (Dendreon), my favorite company in NASDAQ, had another great announcement last Friday. I will mention DNDN quite often, and if one has a stocks portfolio, he may want to consider a small investment in DNDN. It is a risky investment, but has a pretty good potential to become a monster. Newbies to DNDN may want to check the links here: http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&board=1600905258&tid=dndn&sid=1600905258&action=m&mid=200000

In (very) short, DNDN is on the verge of introducing the first ever cancer vaccine ever (for prostate cancer). All clinical trials have been completed and the results are out (and stunning). A very very slight miss in the primary endpoint (p=0.052 vs the bar of p=0.05) of TTP (Time To Prrogression), which is only a surrogate to survival, versus a HUGE survival benefit - which is considered the unltimate target in cancer treatments -- using a NON-chemotherapy vaccine (barely no side effects). In very short, DNDN's vaccine is being prepared using the patient's own white-cell blood, "educating" it to attack ONLY the cancer cells. DNDN's Provenge (the name of the vaccine) has merely no side effects, whereas over 50f today's prostate cancer patients refuse to take Taxotere - today's only approved drug.

The market potential for Provenge is estimated at way over $1 billion (per year) in the US. Typical biotech companies are traded at 8-12x annual revenues. Today's market cap of DNDN is around $300 million -- so go figure what will happen when/if the FDA approves DNDN (decision is expected early next year).

Tons of stories about the market manipulation of DNDN by large hedge funds ... but I will stop here - check the link above and ... think... comments about DNDN are also welcomed.

OK, I hit the submit button and my first ever blog post has been posted. WOW, it works. Not that many comments (yet!), but my aim is to make this a pretty damn interesting blog and I hope that by this time next year there will be a bunch of comments to most of my posts.

Let's revisit this target in June 2007.

So what is a poker operator? what does it look like? what do we actually do there? do we play? and if so, are we good players? where do we play? (OK, hint, some of us play poker, some don't) what does our day at work look like? is it fun? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? there are tons of questions that I am being repeatedly asked by my friends and other people I meet.

All of the above, and much much more will be discussed in the future.

Let me start with the obvious - what is the role of the Operator?

We are a business, a public company (we are listed in London's AIM stock exchange, symbol is EOL) - and as such, we need to make money. How do we make money from poker? Well, I assume that some of you know that we make our dough from rake - the more you play, the more we make. We do NOT care who wins - we need to assure that people play - and the key is honstey. We must assure that the games are 100% fair.

We get some complaints about this and that bad beat - but heck, this is poker. Players MUST understand that the key to our success is the integrity of the game - and we NEVER NEVER compromise about it. I am sure that other poker rooms keep this high standard of integrity.

I hope that the above clears any doubts about integrity - the operators make money from the rake, not from the losses of player "A" nor from the wins of player "B".

So in a nutshell, our job is to attract new players and to retain them. C'est tous. As simple as that.

Hello Cyberspace,

I am a new tenant, just opened my first ever blog account. I am online since 1996, tried pretty much everything but never blogged before.

This blog will be about business. My business. The online gaming business.

There are some excellent poker-related blogs, not sure about casino blogs - but this blog is different. It is from the operator's perspective. Yep, I am going to share with you how we see the business, mainly from the marketing perspective.

I am with Empire Online. We manage a bunch of poker, casino and bingo brands. I will get into the details as we move along. We are a relatively small company, less then 50 employees, most of us focus on marketing. So am I.

There is so much to tell you, "dear cyberspace", and frankly speaking, I have no idea where to start. I guess that I will hit the "Preview and Post" button to see what this first post look like before moving on.