Alex Gardiner, our UK brand manager and former Interpoker affiliate manager, had a chance to exchange words with Yvette, Intepoker's current affiliate manager. In the interview she explains her history in the industry, life in Malta, the male dominated poker industry and Interpoker's place in the market. She also is kind enough to give PAS publishers a few pointers.

1. Yvette, can you please tell our publishers a bit more about yourself and your role at InterPoker? Maybe you could tell us a little about Malta and Maltese life?

Yvette: Sure, my role at Interpoker is that of Poker Affiliate Manager. I manage the accounts of all our Poker Affiliates in all markets and I really work hard to give my affiliates a great personalised service, good advice and assistance for them to get the best out of our partnership. I love building great working long standing relationships with professionalism as well as a great sense of humour. I am a very outgoing person who thrives on giving the best possible ‘service with a smile’ to my affiliates. I have been living in Malta all my life, though I have traveled extensively but I always feel the need to come back to Malta because Malta offers a secure, family oriented lifestyle, easy going culture and amazing weather conditions. Though small, Malta is very rich in culture and history and I feel very proud of my heritage.

2. How long have you been in the online gaming industry and how did you end up at InterPoker?

I have been in the online gaming industry since 2006, first at Gnuf/Betway.com, then at Betfair and now at Interpoker. I moved to Inter because I knew this job was a great step forward in my career because it required me to manage the Poker side of our affiliate programme on my own and that would give me more exposure and responsibility to grow my career.

3. The gaming industry is known for being a bit of a "sausage fest" so to speak! What's it like being a women in a predominantly male industry?

Actually I feel flattered to be a woman in a male industry because it’s more of a challenge and I love challenges.

4. What is your favourite thing about the job? A little birdy tells me you love running reports for affiliates

Hehe Alex I love your sense of humour. Though I feel I’m quite capable of producing reports and I know how important they are to our affiliates to monitor performance, I would say my favourite part of the job is coming up with new innovative ideas together with my affiliates for them to acquire/retain as many players as possible.

5. Tell us about life in Malta. It seems more and more operators and affiliates are moving there. Why do you think that is? It's a fairly small island, so do you ever bump into your affiliates?

Life in Malta is just great! We are blessed with nice sunny weather almost all year round, beautiful beaches, great nightlife, laid back culture and friendly, caring people. The main reason why operators move to Malta is due to the advantageous tax laws for i-gaming companies and now a few years down the line, the country offers a lot of i-gaming expertise, so operators are sure to employ dedicated, experienced people. I do occasionally bump into my affiliates which is just great as it helps improve even more our relationship.


6. InterPoker is on the IPN (Boss Media) Network so you don’t currently accept US players. Do you see the US regulated market opening up any time soon? Is InterPoker ready to take advantage when the market opens up?

There have been talks about the US opening again in the past years. I think that would be great and feel that with legislation banning gaming in various countries around the world we are always ready to explore different regions where to grow our business

7. What are InterPoker’s key markets and what would you say is behind the popularity of the brand in these countries?

UK, Scandinavia, East Europe. The Inter brand has a long standing good reputation with players. This year we will focus on the German market too as we see great opportunities there and we have the poker client in German too which should make the process easier

8. What would you say are the biggest challenges facing InterPoker over the next few years?

For all operators I guess is the individual country legislation which are the biggest challenge because it is something beyond our control and that is what scares the most

9. A number of European countries such as France, Italy, Germany and Denmark have recently introduced a number of new rules and regulations for online gambling. How have these new laws affected InterPoker and the Boss Media Network? Are there any plans for InterPoker to apply for any new licenses if required?

For now we had to ban France & Italy as well as Canada. This was not good however we are always on the lookout for new untapped regions. With regards to licenses, we always make sure to operate in a transparent manner with each country to protect the company and player interests.

10. There are plenty of skins on the IPN (Boss Media) Network, but what would you say are the things that give InterPoker an edge over the competition? (Can you explain why players should play InterPoker over some of the major online poker rooms such as PokerStars or Full Tilt?)

We offer huge value to the players. We have planned amazing promos this year and we are already seeing mass participation. We offer over EUR3.4K in tournaments every month, our own series of live events, a VIP club which is second to none, rakeback..the list is endless

11. Do you have any advice for publishers that will help them to encourage more players to sign up at InterPoker?

By showing the players what huge value they can get and if they are PAS players even more cause they get to participate in our $5000 race in collaboration with Poker Heaven as well as random exclusive, value laden promotions

12. Why should PAS Publishers start promoting InterPoker more aggressively and at the top of their websites? Maybe you could tell our publishers about the new promos we've got lined up?

Because since we have kicked off our 2011 promotions, we have seen conversions increase massively and we also work hand in hand with PAS to keep their players active with exclusive promos, reactivations etc. This year apart from the usual rake race we are planning to run cool gadget promos and live seat qualifiers.

Updated 02-17-2011 at 03:54 PM by TimPAS

Tags: interpoker, pas interview

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‎ Poker Industry News

Hi,

I’ve just joined the PAS team as Regional Brand Manager to develop the UK side of the business. I’m really looking forward to getting Raketracker.co.uk and PokerAffiliateSolutions.co.uk up and running!

Here’s a little bit about me, poker and how I ended up in the online gaming industry.

For the last 3 years, I’ve been working as an affiliate manager: first for Betfair and then for PartnerLogic (the affiliate program for InterPoker). One of the best things about being an affiliate manager is negotiating deals and building relationships with the affiliates. I’ve also been lucky enough to go to all the major affiliate conferences in Europe. The conferences are great opportunities to meet up with all the top affiliates and also to get to know the other affiliate managers. The industry is well known for being quite incestuous, so there is always a good chance of working with these people later in your career!

Earlier this year, PartnerLogic made the decision to move the office from London to Malta. It’s pretty funny really, because Betfair Poker did the exact same thing 2 years ago, but I decided to stay in London. Anyway, at the last conference in Prague I told Herb and Tony about the Malta situation. I’ve always considered the possibility of working on the other side of the affiliate fence so to speak, so when Herb and Tony gave me the opportunity to join the PAS team and grow their UK business, I jumped at the chance! I’m sure my experience as an affiliate manager and my knowledge of poker and the gaming industry will come in handy

I’ve been playing poker for a while now. I first became interested in poker in my last year at secondary school. A lot of the pupils would play card games at lunch time in the 6th form common room. I’m not sure how, but suddenly blackjack became a bit of a craze! It started off with a small crowd playing for 50p per hand, but the group of players gradually got bigger and bigger. In the end, you’d see a hoard of guys huddled around a tiny table gambling with their lunch money. It’s pretty crazy when I think back to it...I mean...everyone was of legal age, but playing blackjack for money at school?! Anyway...it was a rather peculiar variant of blackjack from what I remember and you could even take a shot at dealing if you had the cash behind you! The blackjack quickly got out of control and the teachers soon caught wind of the gambling that was going on under their noses. Obviously they clamped hard and all card games were banned for the rest of term.

In the meanwhile, a few friends and I had been watching "Late Night Poker" on Channel 4. It looked like an exciting game that involved a bit more skill than blackjack, so we started playing! None of us knew the rules of Texas Hold’em, so we played a variant of 5-card draw as that was the only game any of us knew! As any poker player will tell you, playing poker for money (even the lowest of stakes) makes for a much more interesting game. With the whole blackjack fiasco, card games were banned, so I ended up playing chess instead!

In my first year at university I played poker a handful of times with friends, but it was only after learning Texas Hold’em that I really got into the game. A friend of mine found out there was a university poker society! We signed up, but were very disappointed when the society organised only two tournaments for the entire year.

We decided that this was a pathetic effort and we could do a much better job ourselves. We registered the Edinburgh University Poker Society as an official society with the student union association, charged a membership fee and ran a poker tournament every single week. It proved very popular and in the second year of its existence, we were regularly getting 80-100 players each week. In fact, we even had to split the field into two tournaments running in parallel; one for the pros ;-) and one for beginners. The poker boom had well and truly hit the UK and a lot of university poker societies had been established across the country. The university poker societies in Scotland were particularly strong and many of them ran inter-university tournaments. The biggest of these at the time was the UK Student Poker Championship. The UK Student Poker Championship was sponsored by Betfred and offered a WSOP main event package for the winner! Not bad for a £30 buy-in tournament! During my time as president of the society, I was living with another poker enthusiast, so we ended up spending far too much time playing poker! I also spent quite a bit of time getting in touch with various poker rooms including Pokerstars, Victor Chandler, 32red and PKR to arrange sponsorship, affiliate deals and free merchandise for the society

After I finished my degree, I moved back to London and started working for Betfair as their poker affiliate executive. My intention was to work in finance and I was even offered a job for CMC Markets (financial spread betting and CFDs company), but the opportunity to work in a poker role for Betfair was too good to turn down. I already had a good knowledge of Betfair’s competitors, rakeback, affiliates etc. and obviously with my keen interest in poker it was an easy job! ;-)

Anyway, I think I’ve blabbered on enough...

PAS, please don’t move the office to Malta! ;-)

Cheers,
Alex