Party down 30% on weak earnings projections...hmmmmmm???

[Uglyowl]

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Everyone responding like this is an "online poker is doomed" post, please collect your retart badges at the back door.

Party's stock dropped 30% on earning projections. Stock != good player profitability.

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You nailed it on the head, I read through the interim report and the problem isn't player growth, but competitive pressure allowing them not to gauge us as much [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

30% drop is huge. That's a Black Monday kinda drop.

Something fishy might be up. Insiders might know something. Just talking out loud here.

Again, 30% is an insane drop. That is major alarm bells.

[Uglyowl]

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30% drop is huge. That's a Black Monday kinda drop.

Something fishy might be up. Insiders might know something. Just talking out loud here.

Again, 30% is an insane drop. That is major alarm bells.

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There's no problem with online poker or Party for that matter. People had unrealistic expectations and when they see that it is not possible to double revenue year after year, the alarm goes off.

[playersare]

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Again, 30% is an insane drop. That is major alarm bells.

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yes, if it was walmart. for party, I would call it a "correction" from unrealistic expectations. I would keep an eye on WPT stock if you want to see a steeper down slope down the line.

Cryptologic stock had a similar drop last month due to some overblown news about Betfair possibly leaving in 2006, which may or may not even happen. plenty of long-term buy value there.

[Uglyowl]

WPTE is trading where it was in May 2005. Doyle Brunson's rumor about buying it sent the stock surging. As it does not seem to be happening, the stock is back where it was.

WPTE is not putting out really any programming this quarter either.

A quote from Reutres article:

"But the shares took a pounding on Tuesday, dropping to 105 pence after the company said new poker players were spending less and losing interest more quickly than the hard core of players who helped boost its shares since June."

[primetime32]

i have noticed that players on the whole still suck. Lets remember that morons will never be good card players and there are many more morons in the world than not.

[chrisg]

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there are many more morons in the world than not.

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... and although poker may have boomed in the States, it's no where near as far down the line in Europe. Then then there's the rest of the world to consider. Would be great to get the Chinese on board. They love to gamble, and there are [censored] loads of them.

[Uglyowl]

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Would be great to get the Chinese on board. They love to gamble, and there are [censored] loads of them.

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It is funny, everytime I read the bonus T&C's the Chineese are on the banned list. Wonder if that will ever change, seems sites are not very open to them.

[jman220]

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You guys are too much sometimes. I mean sorry, but obviously when the user base at these sights is so high, you cannot expect the same % of growth. Remember, a 10% increase in player population now is equivalent to maybe a 30% increase a year and a half ago. I just think it's funny, the game is still expanding, more people are playing, and you are all worried. Yes the games will get tougher little by little over the next decade, but there will always be bad players. Lets start a thread like this when the actual numbers of players begins to drop.

gabe

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Its actually a good analogy, except I think the numbers are steeper. A ten percent increase in players now would probably be like 100 percent a year ago. What may end up happening might follow what happenned to the dot com boom. The online poker industry grew enormously at ridiculous speeds. Its probably very bloated right now, a lot of the sites will start to dry up, and merge with each other (we're seeing a lot of that right now). Online poker is almost certainly here for the long run, and there will also probably still be good, profitable games, but they just won't be nearly as good as they were at the height of the boom.

Edit: I guess I"m not the only one making this analogy:
``Clearly the ebullience that was in the stock has been pretty much taken away today,'' said Richard Hunter, head of U.K. equities at Hargreaves Landsdown, a London-based stockbroker. ``There are similarities to what happened with technology stocks five years ago.''