Danish company Balslev Media ApS has paid 400,000 euros (close to US $600,000) for the domain casino.de.

This is probably the second highest sale of a ccTLD domain after poker.de was sold for close to 700,000 euros last year.

Seeing .DE generic names reach such high numbers isn't really surprising. With a total of 12 million registered domains, .DE is the world's second largest extension and Germany is an Internet powerhouse. Other country code domains are also starting to command high prices as buyers recognize the value of these names, just like Balslev Media ApS did.

"It’s the perfect brand name - it’s short and it describes exactly what we do," explains Balslev Media chief Jan Balslev. "Many people will find our website even if they don’t know anything about us through direct traffic, which is acquired when people type in a keyword domain name in their browser and find a service provider without searching for it first. The high price (paid for the domain) also indicates the popularity of online casino and poker gambling on the Web."

Balslev Media ApS will turn casino.de into an online gambling portal "offering independent and thoroughly researched information about gambling on the Internet."

They will undoubtedly also turn it into a great source of online advertising income, through pay-per-click and affiliation partnerships with online gambling website operators keen to feature on such an instantly obvious domain name.