Last month, Yahoo! carried out a large-scale advertising campaign to promote the launch of its Texas Hold’em online platform. Yet, the company has announced that the poker portal will stop operating on December 31.
Although Yahoo! pointed out that there is an opportunity for an entirely new Texas Hold’em portal to be launched at some point in future, no comprehensive information was given.
As it was announced on its official webpage, the company will no longer provide players with the present version of Texas Hold’em. Changes in the supporting systems as well as “increased security requirements” for all pages that belong to Yahoo! were listed as the main reasons for the closure.
It is true that security is a matter that absolutely needs to be taken proper care of. Yet, Yahoo! shutting down its Texas Hold’em only a mere month after the massive advertising campaign is a bit hard to understand.
Here it is important to note that the company advertised its poker site on its fantasy football pages, known to be an online hub for young adult males. And indeed the online football competition enjoys an extremely big popularity among this particular demographic. In addition to this, more and more young men get interested in poker games, so there is no doubt that Yahoo!’s platform was bound for imminent success.
This points to the fact that, initially, the company might have not been planning to shut its poker site down so soon after its launch. Otherwise, it might have used the ad space to promote products by Toyota, Procter&Gamble, or some other major advertisers.
The Yahoo! Help section suggests that the company is going to release new versions of popular Classic Games. Although not particularly specified, a new version of Texas Hold’em may also appear at some point in future. The company also promised that the new games will undergo certain improvements, oriented mainly towards better internet security.
What is more, Yahoo! pointed out that its new games will all be free of charge, unlike the present poker ones that require the purchase of chips, so as for the players to be able to enjoy them. There will be some “boosts” that will need to be paid for so as to be acquired. However, they will only be optional and will not be a necessary requirement for one to be allowed access to a given game.
However, there is no information as to whether prizes will be distributed in case poker games return. It seems that the company currently finds it most important to provide its customers with a modern and effective security system.
