GPWA Times - Issue 21 - May 2012

GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES How did you become involved in the industry? I started out as a player years ago after reading Ben Mezrich’s Bringing Down the House . When did you launch your site? March 2011. How long did it take for you to start earning money? We’re earning some money now, but honestly we’re still working on that. Right now your site seems to be pulling in a lot of traffic. Do you have any specific goals for where you’d like to take the site over the next year or so? Major changes to both the site’s look and direction will occur in the next few months. Keep check- ing back at thepogg.com for details as they happen. What traits do you look for in an affiliate manager? How about in an affiliate program? First and foremost I look for AMs who make themselves available to me – there’s nothing worse than having to repeatedly send the same e-mail again and again. In an affiliate program, I’m looking for a team that un- derstands that what’s best for their players is best for both of us. Happy players gamble more! In January you turned the tables on affiliate program folks, letting them know that you’d be going to the London Affiliate Conference and would be available to meet with any of them who might be interested. How did that work out for you? Also, do you attend many conferences? It worked out really well – I was contacted by several AMs for programs I was previ- ously unaware of and got the opportunity to talk to a lot of people who weren’t necessarily hosting their own stalls. LAC was the first conference I’ve attended, but I will be turning up at more in the future. You recently posted that you were looking to add a lot of video content to your site. What kind of videos do you plan to add? And why do you think it makes sense to avoid load- ing the video to YouTube? You’ll have to check back on the- pogg.com in the coming months to find out what’s coming. In general you’re better finding an alternative hosting service (pref- erably a cheap one) rather than YouTube as from time to time you’ll find the YouTube page for your video ranking above the page you embed the video in. But this is a more costly alternative and it’s still a good idea to have a YouTube profile. What advice would you offer someone just starting out in the industry? Don’t expect things to happen overnight and fo- cus on generating content that users are really going to want to engage with. What prompted you to join the GPWA? How has it helped you? Interaction with people with more experience in the affili- ate area of the gambling industry than me. I’ve made several con- tacts now without whom the site would never have reached the level of success that it has and whose advice has had great impact on where the site is going next. What do you like about the industry? Winning. What don’t you like about the industry? Losing. What surprised you most about the industry? I’ve been around the gambling industry on one side of the table or another for a very long time and very little surprises me anymore. I sup- pose the Betfair Happy Hour scandal a while back caught me a little off guard. It shows how quickly a good company can go bad. You posted at length about Daniel Tzvetkoff’s having struck a secret deal with U.S. prosecutors to become a key infor- mant in the case against the top operators at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. Was Tzvetkoff right to try to save his own skin, or was he a cowardly, dishonor- able, dirty rat? Well, the wording of the question tells me your opinion! He’s neither. Everyone involved from the poker rooms through the affiliates and all the way down to the players knew that dealing with U.S. customers was illegal and they were all gambling that the U.S. government would never pursue this is- sue. I feel sympathy for all the people who’ve been financially affected by these draconian prosecutions, but I won’t damn the man for making a bargain that allows him to keep his freedom. There was no “omertà”-style code of silence in all of this, just a lot of people trying to make money doing something they knew they could end up in jail for. thepogg Age 30 Hometown Edinburgh Living in Edinburgh Favorite Food Curry Must Read Book Wheel of Time series, by Robert Jordan Sites thepogg.com “I’m a workaholic and I love what I do.” GPWA Affiliate Interview Series