Ultimate Poker’s Demise Attribute To Poor Leadership Decisions

Ultimate Poker’s Demise Attribute To Poor Leadership Decisions November 19, 2014 November 19, 2014 Tim Glocks https://www.poker-online.com/author/tim
Posted on  Nov 19, 2014 | Updated on  Nov 19, 2014 by Tim Glocks

Ultimate PokerUltimate Poker was the first company to gain a Nevada online poker license and had the entire market to monopolize but the company not only failed to make a good first impression, a couple of days ago we posted Ultimate Poker have now gone out of business after 19 months.

Ultimate Poker did not have a good launch because they were in a hurry to go live in Nevada and launched a product that had numerous flaws and bugs that diminished the quality of the gaming experience. Within a few days after launching, online poker players were expressing their disappointment on numerous forums which we reported in May 2013. Players complained that the system was preventing them from logging in, automatically logging them out, leaving them frustrated and disappointed.

The management of Ultimate Poker promised to analyze all customer feedback and then address these issues with a new version. However, the changes made had little impact and by that time competitors like the WSOP and Real Gaming had entered the market and used their brand and marketing to build a loyal poker following. Ultimate Poker’s traffic took a serious hit and their revenue started to decline significantly.

A number of former online poker player have recently been commenting on the Two Plus Two forum stating that Ultimate Poker could have been a success had they rolled out an exciting product and promotions that were more in keeping with the current online poker industry standards. Players complained that the software Ultimate Poker rolled out felt like something from the early 90s, outdated, irrelevant and not user friendly.

Terrence Chan, the former Director of Player Operations for Ultimate Poker released a video where he claimed that Ultimate Poker had leadership representatives that were more suited to run a brick & mortar casino than an online poker website. They were not very savvy when it came to making decisions for running an online poker website.

In a statement, Chan said

I think there was a lot of application of the old-school brick-and-mortar model to this new internet business, and I think that was a bit anachronistic. I’m talking about everything here: poker room promotions, casino promotions, advertising, social media, branding. Literally everything was influenced – to say the least – by Station Casinos and the top brass there who had an old school approach.

Chan states that there was a legend circulating around an Ultimate Poker meeting where the new website was being presented for the New Jersey market and one of the executives had to have someone explain to him what flash and a navbar were all about. After the entire presentation was done and the executives were asked for feedback, this individual’s contribution was the logo needs a little more purple.

Watch the full video here:

Tim GlocksAuthor

Tim Glocks is a retired professor, he currently contributes to Poker-Online.com. Tim enjoys playing poker and has taken it up as a hobby since his retirement. He has taken part in many online tournaments and has become a veteran in a short space of time. Visit Tim’s google + page here