Jonas Odman Steps Down as President of Bodog
Wednesday June 26,2013 : ODMAN STEPS DOWN AS CHAIRMAN OF BPN
Looks to an alternative market for his Recreational Poker Model
Online poker industry veteran Jonas Odman is moving on after serving as president of the Bodog Poker Network (BPN).
In a press release Tuesday, Ödman hints at the prospect of bringing the Recreational Poker Model he was instrumental in developing to the still unregulated California market.
California lawmakers are currently embroiled in yet another attempt to legalise online poker in the state, one of the more populous that presents a good opportunity for building player liquidity should online poker be legalised.
Ödman predicts that poker operators in smaller states that have already legalised will struggle but if they are allowed to offer other products that do not rely on player liquidity, e.g. online casinos, even operators in small states can be successful.
"The potential market size for online casinos is much bigger than for online poker rooms. Of the three states that have legalised (Delaware, New Jersey and Nevada) two – Delaware and New Jersey – will allow online casino games but Nevada will not," Ödman opines.
He goes on to surmise that Nevada, with a population of only 2.7 million, is instead hoping that they can persuade larger and more populous neighbour California to join their player liquidity.
"That would, of course, be a dream scenario for Nevada but I cannot see that happening," says Ödman . "There would be nothing in it for California, especially as they have well documented financial problems of their own to solve."
California has a population of 37 million people and has one of the largest economies in the world. If the state was to regulate online poker, it could create a California Gold Rush for the online poker industry, and that appears to be what is attracting Ödman.
He said he is "tempted to drive a start-up company, based in the Golden State, which will be a B2B software provider for the regulated US online poker market" and "inevitably I would love to bring the Recreational Poker Model to the US and may well decide to make a fundamental change in my career".
"If poker operators would do things right from the start and launch with a recreational poker model instead of trying to implement it later, California alone is potentially a billion dollar market," Odman observes.
