GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 14 - October 2010

How did you first “discover” the online gambling industry? Did you operate af- filiate sites prior to launching PokerNa- tions? I grew up playing various forms of poker in my teens (having an Italian father helped in that regard) and shortly after Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 World Series of Poker I found a number of online forums dedicated to poker. At one of them I was introduced to online gaming and rakeback deals. I was involved with a small rakeback site prior to starting PokerNations, but now my focus is on the social network. What surprised youmost as you began to learn about the industry? The number of good people in it. The gaming industry of- ten has a negative image, and while there are bad seeds in this and other industries, there are a ton of wonderful people in- volved in the gaming sector. You’ve said that when you launched PokerNations in September 2009 you sawover 4,000 unique visitors right away, and by December that number increased to over 7,000, with around a million page views per month. How are your numbers today, as you mark PN’s first anniversary? We continue to grow our network. We now have thousands of members fromover 140 different countries. Given the global audi- ence the sky is really the limit here. There are millions of poker fans out there and we want to reach them all. You’ve described PokerNations as “a MySpace for poker players.” What dif- ferentiates PokerNations from other poker social networking sites? It’s like a Facebook/MySpace for the poker fan, yes. A lot of other efforts in this field have had the site itself set up with a bias for or against specific products, brands or services, which is something we avoid, welcoming all brands onto our network. In addition, we have a built-in system that rewards our members with “poker chips” for their actions on the network. If they add a friend, vote in a poll, write a blog, upload photos and more, they earn these. They can then use their poker chips to en- ter giveaways for a variety of prizes (some we put up and some from third-party sponsors). On top of this, we also utilize Official Profiles. When you go to other social networks you may find a pro player’s profile or one for a company, but how do you know it’s not an impostor or af- filiate? With our network, we confirm the authenticity of such accounts, which ensures our members that the profile they’re interacting with represents the real individual or company it claims to. PokerNations is an “industry neutral” site. That being the case, how do you generate revenue? We sell advertising space and we’re also looking into some other methods of site monetization for the future. But our main goal is always traffic and content; if you have those then the revenue will follow. Describe your evolution from being a ca- sual poker player to making the leap to professional status. I really got into Oma- ha Hi/Lo when Empire Poker was still a skin of PartyPoker (and where I had rake- back). As I grew as a player and was mak- ing money, I picked up the PokerTracker software and began to keep track of my results. In December of 2005 I considered myself semi-pro, as I was supplementing my income with poker. By September 2006 I was making more playing than I was going into work (i.e., I was losing money punching the clock) so I made the switch to full-time. Of course, two months later the UIGEA hit and PartyPok- er (my bread and butter at the time) was yanked out from under U.S. players, and I had to transition to play at other sites. As a professional poker player, which do you prefer – online or land-based action? And how have you been doing lately? I love the convenience of online gaming, as the nearest casino to me is an hour away. But if I had to pick one I just love play- ing live. The games are softer and I’m an extroverted person, so I enjoy interacting with people (and picking up their tells). I also enjoy playing with real chips, doing chip tricks, etc. While I don’t get to play as much as I used to, at the last live tournament I played in I just missed the final table (at Foxwoods), finishing in 11th place when a guy min-raised the button with king- jack offsuit and I shoved from the big bling with ace-10. He told me he had a “good hand” before he made a bad call (does he think I’m coming over the top of him with king-10?) for his tournament life. So I got the money in as a 60 percent favorite, but you know how that goes — a flop of K-T-K pretty much crippled me and I busted shortly thereafter. Which poker games do you tend to play? Are you strictly a Hold’em guy, or do you play other games? I prefer playing cash games over tournaments, and mixed Anthony Martino PokerNations Sociopathic, narcissistic trolls need not apply “Life is not ‘fair.’ You are not ‘due’ or ‘owed’ anything. Deal with it and suck it up. Some days you’re the fist and some days you’re the face.” 52 GPWA Affiliate Interview Series