GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 34 - February 2016

Your sites are all very poker-centric. Why did you decide to build your sites around poker? And what direction do you think online poker is heading, as an industry? When I be- came an affiliate I was put off from casino and sports betting promotion. I had a friend who would make $2,000-$4,000 play- ing casino games and around $1,000-$2,000 a week betting on football (soccer). As I prefer the rev share option, I specifical- ly stayed away from these markets just in case he signed up. Poker is near and dear to my heart. I love playing poker my- self and I used to love playing online poker. There is a problem though; we first had Ultimate Bet’s [super-user scandal], then Full Tilt [wasn’t segregating player funds], and there are count- less others that have either been involved in shady stuff or have closed down. This has given online poker a stigma and has re- sulted in a huge decline [in online poker traffic] over the years I’ve been an affiliate. There was even a recent case of bots on PokerStars, and this was the nail in the coffin for me. If I want to play I go to my local casino now. I’m just glad it’s only a five-minute drive, and I know a lot of other players that feel the same. If the industry ever wants to gain that trust back, then they are going to have to be- come fully transparent and they need worldwide regu- lations. I have a feeling that greed is to blame for the current situation. Tell us the story behind www.pokersponsor2-0.com . PokerSponsor2-0 was the site where I earned my first affiliate check and was the first real successful affiliate site I owned. When I first found out about rakeback, I thought it was a really good incentive for players. I thought to myself, “What kind of incentive can I offer people to join my site?” I then thought that I could create a site that of- fered players like you or me the opportunity to play in some of the big online tournaments. So when a player joined my site and then played X number of games at a site of their choice, they would send me their hand history and I would check their ROI to see if they were at least capable of playing. If the play- er seemed good then I would pay for their entry into a tournament, and we would then require the buy-in +50% back from any winning player. We had a number of players join the site and in fact I signed up a couple of semi-pros, one of whom appeared on Full Tilt’s Late Night Poker . More often than not the players we sponsored made a profit. Any player who made +20% over the buy-in would be automatically entitled to enter another tournament of their choosing for the same buy-in. As time went on I became busy working on other proj- ects. I actually sold the site, and I believe the new own- ers took it in a different direction and stopped offering sponsorships. This clearly didn’t work for them as the site is now closed and I kind of feel bad. I’d created a unique site with a good database of players. If I ever find the time I might purchase the domain again if it is available and recreate the site. 57 GPWA Affiliate Interview Series