How long have you been working with Poker.com?
I've been working with the group of companies that controls Poker.com since 2000, and working with the Poker.com brand since 2003.

How did you come to the task of managing the room?
I used to play a hand in managing the domain when it was an affiliate site, managed by the internet advertising company I worked at called DarkBlueSea.com. The owners decided to develop their own software for Poker.com and I moved across to help look after the site full time in March 2005 when the first version of the software was ready to launch. I worked as a casino dealer to put myself through university and had extensive experience running gambling websites so it was a good fit.

What's are some of your day to day responsiblilities?
Managing everything that happens at Poker.com from implemenation of new features to new marketing deals.

With so many rooms to choose from, what is it that sets Poker.com apart from the crowd?
Unique software features and a friendly, almost family approach to our players. Our software has features that no other rooms offer. Expose one card, rabbit hunting, player tagging, game filters, custom table graphics to name a few. We've tried to differentiate ourselves in the market by offering software that is more fun to play.

You've recently released version 3.0 of the software. What upgrades were you most excited about, and what upgrades do you look forward to making in the future?
The new options for playing multple tables was the best feature of 3.0. In the future I'm looking forward to adding a lot more new games, and providing new tournament formats like heads up tournaments, shootouts, and bounty tournaments. Very soon we have an update that will really improve the gameplay interface and how you bet etc.

Do you play poker yourself?
Yes, of course.

What's your favorite game?
No Limit Holdem is probably my favorite at the moment mainly due to the fact it's the only game I get to play as everyone knows how to play it, but I'm also a big fan of 5 card draw. I'd really like to get better at Omaha and Stud. I'm a horrible Omaha player. lol.

Where is the most action at poker.com (sng's, low limit cash games, nl mutli-tables, etc)?
Mostly the low limit NL tables and the WSOP satellites.

The big worry I hear from the brick and mortar crowd is the security of online poker. obviously, since every move made in an online room is recorded by computers, there is a good chance to catch cheaters. In general, how good is the technology at catching cheaters, and how much of an impact do they make at online rooms?
I think the Brick & Mortar crowd are largely uneducated when it comes to the technology available to catch cheats and colluders. It is a lot easier to detect these things than most people think. In reality it's not a great concern. Poker rooms share information and we are gradually weeding out the people that try to cheat or fraud the system.

Banking is another issue. How long does it take to cashout at poker.com?
Poker.com offers instant cashouts to regular players via NETeller and Click2Pay. All cashouts are usually processed within 5-20 mins. We're only a small site still in the scheme of things, so it enables us to be very prompt with cashouts.

I think it's important to players to have access to their funds quickly in order to fully trust the site, but on the flip side, the poker room also has to trust the player and be confident they are not a fraudster to be able to cash them out quickly.

Where do you see the online poker industry heading? How big of a role will Poker.com play?
I think there'll be a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the coming years. Online poker will end up like every other industry over time with a handful of very strong brands, and a few niche operators. Think of motor car companies or athletic shoes. There used be hundreds of car companies, but now GM, Ford, Mercedes, Toyota own nearly all of them. Same with shoes - there's Adidas and Nike after Reebok & Converse were bought out. Online poker will end up the same.

Only the strong brands with a devotion to customer service and multiple revenue streams will survive. It's tough to get a better brand than Poker.com so I would say we are quite safe long term and will continue to grow as we have been. There's lots of areas the bigger sites still need to improve and hopefully we will be able to compete with them soon. We have some good plans for the future and are in this business for the long haul.

. . . I'd like to thank Kris for taking some time out of his day and having a chat with us.

This page was last updated on June 28th, 2006.