Jeremy Enke Interview on bots, mobile and ipad-tablet poker

Jeremy Enke is a long time poker affiliate and founder of Poker Affiliate Listings, the largest poker affiliate community and forum. He discusses bots, mobile poker and ipad/tablet poker.

That’s an interesting story actually. Back in 2002 I was getting started in affiliate marketing and trying out different niche’s.

At the time I was dabbling in retail, dating, and I had a pretty decent Ebay business going on.

In 2003 I launched an online casino skin. Needless to say, it failed miserably.

From there I moved over to online poker and never looked back.

When I started, there was no UIGEA, sites accepted paypal for deposits, and Google still allowed PPC. <- The “good old days”.

I enjoy playing both. I find that my results are remarkably better when I play live, however.

I don’t consider myself an excellent poker player, but I love the game.

I’m probably what most would consider a “fish”……Ok, that’s an understatement. I’m actually the guy you want to sit down across if you’re a professional player.

That’s debatable.

I think they are good for keeping action going and getting new networks up and running in some instances.

Likewise a good majority of the bots out there are barely break-even players.

Most pro’s claim that they can spot bot play and can typically beat them.

The one concern I do have with bots is that it puts the integrity of online poker into question, especially when rooms are using their own bots.

Over the past few years, operators have made great strides in eliminating bot play.

There are some obvious tells of bot play that most poker software can now recognize.

I think the biggest thing for a poker operator is to be proactive with their developers and implement measures to recognize these tells, as well as investigate any accounts they may be suspect.

I have been hearing about mobile poker for around 5 years now.

To be honest, I am just not sold on it. Although it sounds innovative, it’s just not practical from a player’s standpoint.

The amount of potential issues that could arise is tremendous.

Whether it be timeouts, dropped signals, mis-clicks, or just simply trying to play online poker for real money on a 2” screen; it doesn’t sound like an enjoyable user experience.

From an affiliate and operator standpoint, your high-value players are going to be the ones that multi-table anyways.

I just can’t see that much rake being generated from mobile players.

Do you think online poker will be a big hit on the iPad and tablet computers?

Now you’re talking!

While I think that mobile and cell phone poker will never amount to anything: I do see a bright future for Ipad and tablet poker.

As the tablet market continues to grow, so will the demand from poker players wishing to play for real money on these.

Last month there were 6600 searches in Google for “Ipad Poker”, and I expect this to grow.

I’m actually quite surprised that none of the major networks or operators have launched an Ipad client yet.

It’s hard to say exactly how big the industry is, but there is no question that the millions of players playing online throughout the world are generating several billions of dollars in revenue to the various operators.

Although I think the landscape of online poker will change over the next 10 years, I do see it continuing to expand.

For every online poker player that gives up the hobby or profession, there will always be new players entering the market.

Likewise, many under developed regions are just now coming online and having the capabilities to perform financial transactions on the internet.

I’m not certain we will ever see another boom like we did in 2005, but without a doubt, the popularity of online poker is here to stay.

The key to being a successful poker affiliate in 2011 and moving forward is to think outside the box.

The days of simply putting up a 20 page content site and some banners and expecting to earn a living are over.

It’s important when starting out to focus on a specific niche within online poker.

Whether that be one variation of poker, poker news, one individual room, you should focus on area and work to dominate it.

It’s also important to be patient and not have ridiculous expectations when getting started.

Building a successful poker affiliate business is no different than building a brick and mortar business.

Much in the beginning is trial and error, and you should expect to have a few failures along the way.

New affiliates should also realize that making a living promoting online poker requires fulltime work.

Too many new affiliates don’t realize that the top poker affiliates are working 40-60 hours a week, and many have staff.

Once you can get it dialed in however and begin seeing profits, there is no better career in the world.

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