One Year On
It’s now been about a year since I started working in the poker industry (and it’s been about eight since I first took up poker). I thought I’d take time to reflect on the past twelve months.
In January last year, I started work for the World Poker Tour – my first ‘proper’, paid job in the poker industry. The job was promoting the WPT’s new site, WPTOnline, to students in Edinburgh. I was Brand Manager, and was paid a basic salary plus bonuses for signing up large numbers of players. The position was only temporary, but I thought it was a good way to get my foot on the ladder.
Sadly, there were problems from the very beginning. It quickly became apparent that WPTOnline was not a top-quality poker site. The software was poorly designed and frequently crashed, the games weren’t run according to industry-standard poker rules, support was practically non-existent, and worst of all, there were hardly any real money players. Despite my best attempts to bring these flaws to the attention of the people in charge, nothing changed.
It was difficult to encourage people to sign up to a site that I didn’t really believe in. WPT didn’t make it easy either – at the time, every player had to enter credit or debit card details just to sign up for an account, even play money, and this bred suspicion and made on-the-spot signups difficult. On top of that, there were problems with the affiliate codes and therefore some players were not properly assigned to their respective brand managers. Most importantly though, there simply wasn’t anything about WPTOnline that distinguished it from the competition. Why should players want to move from their current site to WPT? There was simply no incentive.
The whole program was a disaster for WPT and for us. The most successful brand managers were able to sign up only 40-80 real money players – much lower than was expected. The least successful managed less than 5. At the end of our contracts, WPT simply cut us off without word. As far as I’m aware, none of us have been paid for the players that we signed up. That’s right – the World Poker Tour, probably the biggest company in the history of poker, screwed a bunch of poor students out of a few hundred quid.
After the WPT job, I continued to play to support my income, working part time to pay the bills in case of emergency. In February I interviewed for PokerStars, and in April I started my first week of training for my job as Poker Support Specialist. The job involves answering players’ emails, investigating collusion, all-in abuse and other forms of cheating, and dealing with other complicated poker-related problems and questions.
PokerStars is an excellent company to work for. The salary is excellent – I’m earning more than any 23-year old I know, and I was given a rise after 3 months and a Christmas bonus that was bigger than a month’s pay. In addition to that there is BUPA health and dental coverage, and other benefits like work-related trips to swanky London venues and possibly even major poker tournaments.
PokerStars is wonderful to work for in other ways. Management is friendly and approachable. For the most part, my colleagues are intelligent people, and there are no ‘weak links’ in the poker support team. They treat their employees well, and I feel valued. On top of all that, I get to work from my favourite city in the world, Edinburgh. For my first full time job, I couldn’t have landed any more firmly on my feet. When Full Tilt Poker approached me later in the year to work for them, I was reluctant to even interview (despite my long-standing fondness for them as a site).
In May, my writing career took off when I was approached by the editor of Inside Edge magazine, and my first article, ‘Necessary Evil’ was commissioned. I did wonder whether the readers would readily accept advice from an ‘unknown’ like myself, but the article was well-received and I have been writing more and more for the magazine since.
Inside Edge has changed a lot since the early days. When I first read the magazine, it was mainly a sports-betting publication with occasional poker coverage. The advice you could read back in those days was fairly basic, quick-fix advice, with choice quotes like ‘If you have A-K, raise regardless of your position’. Shortly before I joined, the poker coverage was expanded, retargeted at intermediate to advanced players, and hugely improved; and in the last couple of months the sports betting aspect has been eliminated. In my opinion, Inside Edge is now one of the highest-quality mainstream poker publications in the UK. In fact, only CardPlayer Europe is in the same league.
Recently, I’ve written several other articles for the mag. ‘Sizing Up’, an article about bet-sizing mistakes, was published in the November issue. The February issue which is being released as we speak contains ‘Plain Sailing’, an article about how to play the river. Future issues will have articles on slowplaying aces and fold equity. In addition to that, it’s possible that a new monthly column may be introduced, where I answer readers’ questions about the game.
Besides Inside Edge, I’ve written for Gutshot, Poker Listings, and Betfair. All of these are reputable companies and I’m proud to be associated with them all.
When I think about what I’ve achieved, I’m very proud and I feel extremely lucky. In the space of 12 months, I’ve gone from scratching out a living online to making a handsome £40,000 a year, even before poker winnings. I’ve worked hard to get to where I am, and other areas of my life have undoubtedly suffered. But it’s been worth it. I just hope the next year is as good, and there are no career one-outers on the horizon!
