What’s in a bingo Domain Name?

When it comes to your favourite online bingo site – what’s in a name?

Have you ever wondered why your favourite bingo site’s URL is what it is? We’re not talking about the brand name (e.g. Mecca), however; we’re referring to the .com or .uk after their name. Moves are currently afoot to make much more understandable domain name extensions available to those in the gambling industry, so today we’re taking a look at the history of all things “dot com” and how the lay of the land may shift in future.

The origins of domain name extensions

Back in the day (around 1985 to be precise), browsing the web mainly consisted of searching for, and visiting, sites with .com extensions, e.g. Google.com. However, at the same time, a relatively small number of organisations used .edu (normally schools and universities), .gov (governmental bodies), .mil (military bodies), .org (organisations), and .net (networks – mainly internet service providers).

However, seeing as we’re a picky bunch, the good folk at the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) soon offered us two-character country-specific domain names, which is when .uk and .us, etc. were born, and .int was introduced in 1988 for international intergovernmental organisations such as NATO.

After a new body – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – was set up in 1998, things started to get a bit more interesting. New extensions like .biz, .info, .pro, and .museum suddenly became available in 2000, followed by options like .jobs, .mobi, and .travel between 2005 and 2007.

Who can use what type?

Picking a domain name extension isn’t like going shopping for a new winter coat; you can’t just pick any one you choose. Whilst some are unrestricted and can be used by anyone (e.g., .com, .org and .net), many are restricted, and organisations and individuals have to meet certain requirements in order to be able to use them. However, there’s a constant demand for different types to be made available to further clarify the aim of each website and the market they are hoping to attract. A few people have cleverly circumvented the current restrictions, such as social bookmarking site, Delicious, which uses del.icio.us, alongside the bog-standard delicious.com. Many people have been campaigning for a .kids extension for use by websites that are primarily designed for children, and in 2011, .xxx was approved (after much debate) by ICANN for use with adult entertainment sites.

New changes in suffixes and how they may affect bingo sites

In June 2011, ICANN voted to do away with the majority of restrictions on generic top-level domains (gLTDs) and companies were at last free to apply for new gLTDs for their brands. However, this new-found freedom came at a price – $185,000 to be exact – for each application. This meant that the owners of sports-betting, casino, bingo and online gaming sites were now allowed to decide whether to retain their existing domain names, or make a move towards a more appropriate one for their field.

On 13th June 2012, ICANN announced that they had received almost 2,000 applications, the gLTDs for which are expected to go live in 2013. At the same time, it became public knowledge who exactly had applied for what, and it’s very interesting to see which movers and shakers in the gambling industry have been competing for what.

.BET has had applications from Bet Limited, Afilias Ltd., and Ladbrokes International Plc, whilst .BINGO faces fierce competition from both Sand Cedar LLC and dot Bingo Ltd. The .POKER domain has been requested by Binky Mill LLC, dot Poker Limited.trading, Afilias Domains No. 6 Ltd., and Dot Poker LLC. As you’d expect, some of the big guns opted to apply for their own brand names, so William Hill has requested .WILLIAMHILL, Ladbrokes have gone for .LADBROKES, and Resorts World Inc Pte. Ltd. has applied for .GENTING.

Auctions are due to be held later this year to see who will win the domains that each company has applied for, and it won’t be a cheap ride for the successful bidder either; each suffix will cost $25k to rent, which may explain why smaller businesses didn’t even try to stand up to the bigger ones earlier on in the process.

In conclusion, it will be very interesting to watch as the clash of the titans unfolds, and see who walks away victorious and who walks away sniffling. However, it will be even more fascinating to see how sites such as .williamhill and .ladbrokes use their new domains, and how they change their marketing and offerings to their customers accordingly.