GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 4 - April 2008

GPWA TIMES | GPWA Affiliate Interview Series 16 City currently residing in: Heredia, Costa Rica Age : 36 Favorite food: Once I have a favorite food I usually eat it every day until I can’t stand it anymore. One thing they have in common is that they are all desserts. One book everyone must read: If I had to choose I’d say “On the Shoulders of Giants,”by Stephen Hawking. It’s a brief overview of the history of the pioneers of physics and astronomy. Sites: WagerX.com, live-blackjack.co.uk, betyourmonkey.com, live-dealer-casino.co.uk , CrazyMonkeyCasino.com INTERVIEWWITH Adrian David Carli | WagerX WagerX: The Doctor Is In How long have you been working in the online gaming industry? I’ve been involved in the online gaming industry for about two years now. You’re living in Costa Rica now, but you’re originally from the U.S. How did you end up in Costa Rica? That question as well as “What do you do?” pops up all the time. Each time I hear it I pause and brace myself for making a long story short. I grew up in a small town in north Florida and finished my Mechanical Engineering degree as well as pre-med requirements at the University of Florida. I worked for a few years as an Engineer until my son was born. Soon after, I decided to go to medical school here in Costa Rica. Afterwards, I decided to stay. It’s been 10 years now and I already feel like Costa Rica is my home. Besides language, what was the big- gest adjustment you had to make in terms of living in Costa Rica? Not be- ing close to family and friends was the biggest adjustment. At the time the cost of international calls prohib- ited me from contacting my family as much as I would have liked. How does the climate toward online gambling differ between the U.S. and Costa Rica? Up until about a year ago the gambling industry was a promi- nent part of the Costa Rican economy. It was a welcomed healthy source of income for thousands of Costa Ricans. Having a profession related to online gambling is a respected occupation with no negative connotations. That’s a stark contrast to what’s happening in the U.S. Just getting a link from a webmaster is hard because online gambling is considered a “bad neigh- borhood.” One of the things that you’ve done with some of your sites is let free- lancers handle the design work. You’ve also hired freelance content writers. What were those experienc- es like?What are the pros and cons of outsourcing? My experiences with freelancers have been positive over- all, but I’ve made pretty much every mistake you can make with them. I’ve used them for design work, con- tent creation, and basic SEO. When I think of “SEO” and “free- lancer” in the same sentence I cringe. I had no idea whatsoever what I was doing when I hired my first freelanc- er to do some SEO work on my first Web site. At the time I was concerned with the monetary “cost” of getting the job done and not the “risk” of having them do it. Keep in mind that this was before I joined GPWA.org and didn’t have anyone to give me guidance. The “SEO expert” took my site and my money and then handed me a site that was shortly banned from Google and Yahoo within three months. The site is still suffering one year later. That was a bad experience and I don’t recommend that anyone get a so-called “SEO expert” to work on your site. I had to start all over again with other Web sites because I paid to have someone mess up my Web site by stuffing keywords all over my site. What I’ve found is that original quality content is the key to great organic search engine place- ment. In addition to your work as an af- filiate, you hold down a full time job and you’re in the process of trying to become a surgeon. How do you manage your time? The extra in- come I make being an affiliate has made all the difference in my plans to get a medical specialization. I have stopped working as a general doctor and am dedicating my time to study- ing for the various exams you need to get into a specialty program. I’ve competed for programs in Colombia and here in Costa Rica. I’ll be go- ing to Mexico and the U.S. later this year. Continued on page 49