PurePlay: US Legal Internet Poker Club Raises Funding

May 6th, 2008 by admin

According to VentureBeat, PurePlay, a poker and proto-gambling site that today announced $15 million in funding from various venture capital firms and other investment sources.

PurePlay is an online gambling site where everyone, including US residents can play for, and win, money in online poker games. There is only one other popular online poker website that is legal for US residents, DuplicatePoker, which slightly alters the rules to make it a more a game of skill, which is than permitted by US law.

PurePlay was planned out and started well in advance of the UIGEA laws, says CEO Jason Kellerman. The trick to PurePlay is that it works off a subscription model, with users paying set monthly fees to play, but gaining the potential to win large sums if they’re good enough to win tournaments.

Of that sizable pool of gamers, PurePlay has captured about a million people. It doesn’t disclose how many are paying, but some extrapolation is possible. The company says it pays out over $125,000 each month in prizes. Subscriptions are $20 a month, so if PurePlay gives back 25 percent of its subscription fees, it has around 25,000 paying subscribers; if it gives back 50 percent, then only 12,500 subscribers, and so forth.

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