GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 2 - October 2007

48 take you more time than it takes to get a doctorate. Among pilots it is often said that the little card they give you once you pass the final test is a “license to learn.” This is true, plus it’s a good statement of the kind of perspective you should have regarding the issue. If you believe that you know everything then you are ready to make a serious mistake. What kind of planes do you fly? The two I like most are the Beechcraft King Air, which is an executive, twin- engine plane that is beautiful in shape and handling, and the Piper Cub because you have to fly it “by the seat of your pants” with no instruments and no complicated procedures. I guess it comes quite close to the way birds fly. Then, I fly a lot on simulators because I design them. For those of us who have never piloted a plane, could you please describe what that experience feels like? Once you get the basics it is actually easier and safer than driving a car; in fact I feel safer in the air than on the road to the airport. The view is always superb from the cockpit and you always have a wonderful landscape of clouds in the sky and terrain below which is never twice the same. What challenges do you face working in Argentina that other affiliates might not have to deal with? The financial sector and the banking system are not to be trusted and cannot deliver the kind of services that are common in other countries. Getting a check in U.S. dollars and converting it into cash is easy – in theory – but takes a lot of time and costs quite a bit, not to mention more sophisticated operations of the kind often required within the framework of e- commerce. Too often rules change diametrically with no prior warning and that creates a lot of administrative overhead; you can find yourself under new regulations dealing with whatever thing, changed at the eleventh hour, but nobody seems to know them or actually where to find the actual text of those new rules! You only know that suddenly what you believed was being done right and legally becomes dangerous for you, or vice versa. What is currently the most difficult part of your work? And why? I think that dealingwith the hurdles imposed by distance, legislation and the tendency to attempt to control just about everything that governments now seem to have all across the world represents the most difficult or demanding part of this activity in my case. This trend is very dangerous and deserves a lot of attention not just by us in the online gambling industry, but almost anyone who believes in freedom. Also, keeping up with the things that politicians and bureaucrats come up with. Perhaps that is not the biggest problem in the United States, Canada or Europe, but considering that I live in the country that has the dubious honor of having thrilled the world with the biggest bankruptcy in history, well... that speaks volumes. What are the key differences (besides linguistics!) between Spanish-language and English-language players? I believe the choices of games are a little bit different: Poker, for example, is not quite as well known among Spanish- speaking players while Bingo and slots do very well. This has a lot to do with cultural roots: Most card games found here are of Spanish tradition and bingo parlors sporting dozens of traditional slot machines each are commonplace, so people tend to feel more familiar with such games when they go online. The other difference is that you won’t find as many casual players online among Spaniards and Latin Americans as you’d find among people living in the U.S.; if you target Spanish-speaking players you have to think in terms of rather well-educated, high-income customers. How has the GPWA helped you as an affiliate? It got me right into a community of open- minded people sharing common interests; that means a lot just by itself because having a healthy industry means that your business has better chances of succeeding. If you look around many forums and communities online, participants tend to be focused on just having the last word in any sort of discussion; that´s destructive. GPWA members are far more collaborative and as you share your own experiences you also learn from what others have to say. What advice can you offer people who are just starting up in the industry? Write and persist. I think that you need to develop a good website, and that de- pends in turn on publishing truly original content over time. There are too many websites, and yours should be different from the rest. Content is King, Queen and Prince online. It takes longer to develop such a site by writing your own ideas than, say, buy- ing traffic or placing ads, but it gives you far better long-term stability and growth chances: The other, non-gambling site that I own receives nearly 10,000 unique visitors per day, is ranked by Alexa well What is currently the most difficult part of your work? And why? Currently writing slot reviews is the most difficult for me, because it takes a lot of time, and to write a good review of a slot game I need to read a lot of other reviews from affiliate programs and try to play it. Video slot is a specific game and it’s very difficult to write about it, so the main problem is in my English – or maybe not, because in Russian it’s also very difficult for me to write a review! For example, at present I understand almost all terms of video slot in English but I don’t know these terms in Russian, so I need to learn video slots in Russian from the beginning. Whatwas your favoritesubject inschool? And why was it your favorite subject? Mathematics. I always liked to think of it as a self-contained world where everything could be solved. I especially liked Geometry. I knew a lot of theorems and I liked to solve different tasks by applying these theorems. If you could pick any animal to be for one day, which one would it be? And why? I would pick the Red Panda. I think it’s one of the most beautiful animals, and it’s a defenseless animal, so I could protect it. Pablo Edronkin | Continued from p.17 GPWA TIMES | GPWA affiliate interview series