Epic new gTLD fail? Gambling site named after new gTLD but doesn’t use it
Online gambling company bwin.party owns the domain name bwin.party but, bafflingly, hasn’t even turned it on.
The company runs PartyPoker and other betting sites and is in the business news today due to a takeover bid from rival 888.
Having just heard the story reported on the TV, I went to check out its web site — this was a significant company which had apparently rebranded to a new gTLD, and I hadn’t heard of it before.
But the domain name bwin.party doesn’t resolve, even though it’s an exact — exact, down to the lower case letters and the dot — match of the company name.
bwin.party actually uses bwinparty.com and bwin.com.
The domain is registered via Com Laude, so I assume it’s a defensive play.
.party is a new gTLD managed by Famous Four Media. It currently has over 134,000 names it its zone, growing by thousands of names per day, strongly suggesting it’s being sold for next to nothing at one or more registrars.
I think AlpNames was doing a .Party promo recently =)