eGaming Review Awards 2009 results and winners

The 2009 eGaming Review Awards were held at London`s Billingsgate last night and there were plenty of winners with 19 different categories being judged.

The awards, which are considered to be the most important in online gambling, were presented by comedian Mark Watson in front of an audience of more than 900 executives from the gaming industry.

The top award, for Operator of the Year, went to European gambling giant Bwin, who the judges described as "covering all the angles". Bet 365 were highly commended in the award with other nominees including 888, Betclick, Betfair, Party Gaming and William Hill Online.

In other categories, Gamesys won Innovation of the Year, PKR won Online Marketing Campaign of the Year, Virgin Games was judged Affiliate Programme of the Year and Betclick won Offline Marketing Campaign of the Year (for which bingo operator Cashcade were highly commended).

Probability was named Mobile Operator of the Year (with a special commendation given to Betfair), Betsson was Socially Responsible Operator of the Year and SBO Bet was Asian Operator of the Year.

Betboo was named Latin American Operator of the Year while Foxy Bingo picked up the Bingo Operator of the Year award.

In sports betting Unibet was named European Sports Betting Operator of the Year while Betfair picked up the UK Sports Betting Operator of the Year award.

888 was named Casino Operator of the Year and Party Gaming picked up Poker Operator of the Year.

Bet on Markets won the Financial Betting Operator of the Year contest while Gaming Media Group picked up Rising Star of the Year for companies less than three years old with annual gaming revenues under £10 million.

In the live gaming category, Unibet was named European Live Gaming Operator of the Year and VCBetAsia was Asian Live Gaming Operator of the Year.

Delegates at the Awards dinner generally thought most of the winners were worthy of their titles but there was some general grumbling about the new format of the Awards. The prizes were all handed out prior to the main dinner, so that food was not served until after 9pm. The heat of the basement dining room was also widely mentioned, although no doubt that was largely down to the hot air generated by the attendees.