UK online gambling giant 888 is to alteration its make to “Evoke.” CEO Per Widerstrom said Tuesday the renaming was “the beginning of an exciting unexampled dawn” for the company, which has lately been set upon by management upheaval and regulatory investigations, and has opted to pull come out of American markets.
The young nominate echoes steps taken past major UK play companies to liven upwards their brand names inwards recent years. The drab-sounding GVC Holdings became the zesty but nonsensical “Entain” and the M&A-generated mouthful that was Mickey Power Betfair became the whimsical “Flutter.”
Flutter, incidentally, was originally the identify of a tiny betting exchange that was Betfair’s first acquisition almost 20 years earlier. The name-swap was an offbeat tribute to the Betfair’s translation from a refreshing idea almost matching bets online to an international play behemoth.
Wrong Number
Around the same clip Betfair launched its groundbreaking ceremony betting change inward 2001, a fledgling online gaming keep company called Virtual Holdings Ltd, based inwards the Brits Virgin Islands, a revenue enhancement haven, rebranded to 888.
The identify was chosen because the keep down octad is lucky in Chinese numerology. This is because its orthoepy “Ba” sounds similar to the word “fa,” which denotes great wealth, success, and status. And so, past extension, 888 is triply lucky because three also happens to be a lucky number.
In China, addresses and speech sound numbers containing the figure sequence 888 tin can mastery insurance premium prices because of their perceived auspicious qualities.
So, wherefore not 8888 for fourfold success?
Are you crazy? The identification number 4 inwards Chinese numerology is the most ill-fated of all numbers. It is calamitous, catastrophic, and synonymous with DEATH.
As wellspring as skipping the 13th storey to cater to superstitious westerners, many Las Vegas casino resorts also elide floors 40 through 49 so as not to lusus naturae out Chinese guests, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported recently. Fear of the identification number 4 is called tetraphobia.
Girl Band Vibes
These days, the society presently to follow known as Evoke is not so focussed on unregulated markets, so maybe catering to Chinese superstitions isn’t so of import anymore.
In fact, parting of 888’s new programme (and it’s relieve called 888, for now) is to refocus on its magnetic core markets of the UK, Italy, Spain, and Denmark.
But what does Evoke evoke? It sounds the like it could be the in vogue(p) fragrance from Calvin Klein. It also has 1990s miss banding vibes. But a play company?
Maybe this is division of the trend for troupe names to tender dead no clew to the services they offer.
Or maybe someone took the brief to add up upward with an “evocative” unexampled keep company figure way too literally.