Telegraph and gaming group team up for a poker scratchcard ‘first’

Gaming company Victor Chandler has signed a deal with The Daily Telegraph to launch the first scratchcard poker game.

The partnership also includes VCPoker.com branding appearing on Ben Grundy’s column in the Saturday edition of the newspaper, and providing occasional supplements about the game.

The deal begins on Saturday, when copies of the paper will include a scratchcard for the “Paper Poker” game, which has a prize fund of &£500,000 each week for two weeks.

Players scratch off silver panels on the card revealing two playing cards. If they form a winning hand with the five communal cards published in the paper each day, they win a cash prize.

Victor Chandler group marketing director Alan Randall claims the scratchcard initiative is the first of its kind.

“We are creating the gaming experience offline. There is a lot of branding and positioning offline but this is the first time anyone has actually provided offline play,” he says.

Victor Chandler is spending &£4m on print and poster advertising for VCPoker.com over the next six months. This includes the &£1m prize fund for Paper Poker, in-house created ads in the Telegraph, other print advertising, and a bound-in insert across a range of magazines to run throughout next month. Planning is by Starcom MediaVest.

The company has also signed a deal whereby the VC Poker Cup competition will be televised on Sky Sports in the UK and in 22 other countries later this year.