New Fish in Party's Pond?

While PartyGaming's live-dealer agreement this morning grazed industry headlines, rumor of the Gibraltar company's having appointed a new marketing officer has been all but confirmed.

IGamingNews understands that Jon Salmon, the managing director of Intercasino's marketing agency, AdsDotCom, has been given the nod and will join ranks with one of I-gaming's biggest brands.

At this point, however, it is not clear whether Mr. Salmon will replace or serve alongside Sabin Brooks, Party's marketing director, who joined the company before its July 2005 initial public offering.

"Basically, Jim (Ryan) knows him (Mr. Salmon) quite well," one analyst, who wished not to be named, told IGamingNews this morning when asked about why Mr. Salmon was taken on.

"They realized that they needed to focus more on the marketing side of the business, and I think he's widely regarded as being one of the best poker and casino marketing guys in the industry," the analyst added.

Intercasino, a long-standing licensee of CryptoLogic Ltd. thought to generate the lion's share of its revenue, is remembered most recently for its brush with the United Kingdom Advertising Standards Authority.

The authority in April decreed Intercasino's ad featuring "two people of restricted growth" dressed as dice and rolling down a hill -- this to simulate what the authority called a "giant game of craps" -- unfit for broadcast.

It is thought that Mr. Salmon's focus may lie with the company's standalone casino business, which during the first half grew 38 percent on revenue of $89.8 million against the comparable period last year.

The casino business, the performance of which was undoubtedly buoyed by the addition of film-themed slots this year, received another boost today on the company's deal with Evolution Gaming of London for live-dealer baccarat, blackjack and roulette.

As with the City Index deal in July, however, analysts were lukewarm in responding to this deal.

"Good addition to the stable," Andrew P. Lee, an analyst with Dresdner Kleinwort, told IGN by telephone this morning. "I'm not going to start changing my numbers about it -- but it all helps."

Certainly the biggest drivers going ahead for Party, then, will be a new poker platform with accompanying branding campaign, as well as a reenergized foray into the business-to-business world.

"PartyGaming, following initial success of its white label bingo venture with iTV, has also decided to enter this fast growing segment of the market and commented last night that it has already been approached by a number of non-gaming and gaming third parties," Richard Carter, an analyst with Numis Securities in London, wrote in a research note last week.