Q&A: Dominik Kofert, chief executive, PokerStrategy.com
PokerStrategy.com head honcho Dominik Kofert on setting up the giant community and education portal, the impact of poker school-taught "grinders" on casual players and white-label ambitions.
EGR: How did you come to set up community portal PokerStrategy.com?
DK: I started playing poker at university in 2004, becoming active as an affiliate in 2005, and working with famous German chess player Matthias Wahls on educational ideas. PokerStrategy.com was set up in 2007, the idea being to combine poker education with communities and social networking to reach out to newer poker markets.
EGR: How many territories is PokerStrategy.com in, and do your immediate plans for growing the business involve M&A activity?
DK: Our website is available in 18 languages, and this covers the majority of the world. The model is multi-viral “ once you set up in a new language, you see growth. We are also starting offline initiatives in markets where the mainstream gambling market isn’t that developed yet, such as Romania, with modest amounts of TV and print advertising. Our mantra is to focus 100% on our core business as long as we see the extreme growth we are currently seeing. So far we have shied away from making acquisitions of our own so as to not lose that focus. But we do get approached by various parties now and then regarding strategic deals.
EGR: What is your response to the argument that poker schools have led to a generation of grinders, which impairs the poker-playing experience for casual players?
DK: The availability of education as a whole does not generate grinders or professional players. It teaches people the basic rules and strategies, giving them sufficient know-how to give it a try. For many, poker will become a recreational pastime. For others, it will become a profession. Both groups are important for the poker market, and it is our goal to address both. However, the trend set up by numerous poker schools cannot be reversed. At the top end, poker naturally becomes more competitive simply because the amount of money available generates huge demand for poker education. Therefore, a lot of poker schools focus only on these players, and you might argue those are ‘bad’ for the market. However, anybody with a more holistic approach has a great tool to get more people interested in poker and to open markets traditionally overlooked by gaming companies.
EGR: Although you are non US-facing, you must have one eye on this market opening”¦
DK: I think people are placing too much hope in the US market. It is going to be a great market when it opens, but it is not going to be as good as everybody thinks, in particular now PokerStars and Full Tilt have taken a huge lead. But if and when the US market opens, it will be quite easy for us to find good partners, as any licensed poker room in the US will likely look for a constant stream of new players, which we can provide through viral growth. We get complaints from US players who want to sign up but can’t.
EGR: It is difficult for companies in this industry to plan much beyond the immediate term, but does PokerStrategy.com have any long-term goals?
DK: We want to develop a white label-capable website technology that will help us to offer poker schools to business partners, but also to reproduce what PokerStrategy.com does for poker within other products.
Dominik Kofert will be appearing on the CEO Panel at EGR Live alongside BetClic CEO Nicolas Beraud and Unibet CEO Petter Nylander.