GPI launches Fantasy Poker Manager on Facebook
App is the first online project of the Global Poker Index since it was acquired last year by Alex Dreyfus' Zokay Entertainment.
Former Chiligaming CEO Alex Dreyfus has announced the launch of a fantasy poker Facebook app, the first project from his new venture Zokay Entertainment since it acquired rankings system Global Poker Index last August.
Utilising the GPI rankings, which rates thousands of poker pros based on their live tournament results, the Fantasy Poker Manager (FPM) app allows players to pick a team of 10 players from a budget of $1,000,000 in virtual credits.
Players are valued based on their GPI ranking, however their value can go up and down depending on results during the year and on how many teams select them. They score points based on their performances in selected live tournaments including the World Series of Poker and European Poker Tour.
Those competing can earn two extra selections by inviting friends to the app, while a 13th slot will be reserved for players’ own live results (providing they are not a professional player). The app also allows them to set up private leagues between friends and keep track of pros’ progress over time.
It is also possible to earn loyalty points for every action taken in the game, such as challenging friends and taking a daily poker quiz, and Dreyfus told eGaming Review: “My focus will be to engage the players more on the loyalty points side because I want to make this the community for poker fans to follow events or players all around the world.
“On GPI we have 230,000 players who have results over the past few years so our goal is to feed the GPI database with more data from other players,” he added.
“For example if I log into the game it will ask me ‘Are you the Alex Dreyfus who won this event in Malta’, which I did. I’ll say yes, and this will help the GPI database become even more accurate about live players and their results.”
Dreyfus is targeting “The 35 million Americans who play fantasy sports, the 50 million online poker fans and 35 million Zynga poker players,” and describes FPM as “The first bridge between online poker, social poker and live poker – a new generation of app.” Zokay has allocated private funds to the tune of $1.5m on GPI and FPM.
Zokay Entertainment began working on FPM as soon as it acquired the Global Poker Index from Pinnacle Entertainment in August. The GPI had previously been set up by Federated Sports+Gaming, operator of the Epic Poker League, before the company filed for bankruptcy last year and a number its assets were sold to the US land-based operator.
Dreyfus has spent recent weeks at live poker tournaments seeking out the opinions of a number of members of the GPI Top 300 and said: “We already have the endorsements of players who have seen the game, and they will definitely use it for two reasons. The first reason is some will use it to support their own prop bets with people – we don’t take anything from that but they will use the tool as a tool.
“Secondly, it will be a way to motivate every single player in the world to have more fun – We will communicate with players how many teams have selected them and if you have 1,000 people who are sending you a message that they’ve picked you and believe in you, it will motivate them like it would any football player to be picked in a fantasy team,” he added.
Zokay Entertainment is also in discussions with media outlets to further publicise the app, with Dreyfus saying “We want every single poker media in the world to use this tool to actually create their own content and engage more with their own community – our goal is for all these guys to use this for their communities, followers and so on.”