GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 15 - January 2011

Chocoholism, one clever canine, a lump of meat – and more! We recently caught up with five GPWA webmasters in four far- away places and one place that’s just a state or two away from the GPWA Times Magazine ’s Massa- chusetts office. To be specific (or at least as specific as these chaotic, unsettled times in our industry allow us to be), they’re based in South Af- rica, Mexico, Malta, Pennsylvania and . . . somewhere in Europe. As always, these interviewees are as different as the day is long, ex- cept for the occasional remarkable coincidence (e.g., two of them fan- tasize about having dinner with the second President Bush). Something else they have in com- mon is the thoughtfulness and gen- erosity they show when asked to share their experiences and recipes for achieving success in our indus- try. We learned a thing or two, and we know you will, too. You currently operate four sites – three poker-related and one dedicated to “all things bingo.” When you decided to branch out beyond poker, why did you happen to go with bingo rather than, say, a casino site? It was mostly on a whim and I just “threw” it together quick- ly. Unfortunately the bingo site gets very little attention, but I hope to get back to it in the near future. I chose bingo because I thought it would be easier than a casino site. I think it’s very important to actu- ally play at the site(s) you are reviewing. I have never really played at many online casinos so it would have been tough to de- velop a site dedicated to casino games. What did you do before you became an online gambling affiliate? My profes- sional career has all been in the retail in- dustry. I have worked for a few different companies ranging from small operators to at the time the third-largest retailer in the world. I have had several positions ranging from general manager of a big- box retail store to working in the finance and IT departments on the corporate side. I’m currently working on getting my MBA, so I may be back in the corporate world sooner than later. Why did you become an online gaming affiliate? How did you get your start in the business? I have always been a gam- bler but unfortunately never that good at it. After blowing my bankroll I was brows- ing the Web and came across an affiliate link somewhere and read about it. Learn- ing that I could earn a piece of the action by referring players, I thought, “How hard could that be – I can do that.” I really had no idea! I started a Web site and the rest is history. What’s different about the industry now compared towhen you started? I’ve real- ly only been doing it about two years now, so not a lot has changed for me person- ally. The biggest thing I guess is the fact that many affiliate programs now charge so many fees your commission percent- age really drops. It seems when I started you earned 25 to 30 percent of revenue less any bonuses. Now, with processing fees and chargebacks, 25 percent is not what it used to be. How long was it before you started mak- ing money? I was lucky in that I really started making money right away. Some- how I managed to get a few big players, *Due to space constraints,we could not print the interviews in their entirety.The complete text will be posted at gpwa.org. GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES His dog helps out, and is honing her typing skills Travis Gottfried UltimatePokerBonus Travis (far left) at a Penn State University football game