18(a) Describe the mission/purpose of your proposed gTLD

Prototypical answer:

Afilias Domains No. 5, the Applicant, is a subsidiary of Afilias Limited, and will be referred to throughout this application as Afilias for simplicity of review by ICANN.


Mission and purpose

Poker tournaments and venues of all varieties are experiencing explosive growth around the United States and the world. There is also a proliferation of poker-related websites across the Internet, creating consumer confusion about the validity or purpose of some sites. A .POKER TLD would provide an opportunity for these businesses and venues to establish clear Internet identities for users to find or avoid such sites, depending in their inclinations.

The .POKER TLD will create an easily identifiable Internet space where the poker-related activities carried on there are clearly understood and consumers visiting will have reasonable expectations of content. This creates value for registrants in that they can assume that visitors have arrived at their websites willingly and in full knowledge. This creates an atmosphere of greater trust for all participants.

We anticipate that it will take a fair amount of time to build brand awareness of the TLD, and that registrants will self-select in their intent to register, driven by the level of their desire to participate in the TLD. Although the total number of all gambling establishments worldwide approaches 5,000, we anticipate that many of those establishments will purchase multiple domains to cover various aspects of their business and promotions. Further, changing laws and customs could allow for more innovation and offerings in this space, though such regulatory changes in the market are not being factored into the domain forecast. Moreover, we expect that a fair amount of registrants plan to develop sites that are informative in nature, and not strictly dedicated to delivering new services. Therefore, we anticipate 21,100 domains under management (DUMs) by the end of the third year of operation.

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