‘Ex-SEO Manager’ of PokerStars and Full Tilt Threatens Exposure

A ‘former employee’ of Amaya, the company which operates both Poker Stars and FullTilt, has vowed to expose the ‘underhanded tactics’ used to attract new players and is intent on exposing online poker as a ‘game of luck rather than skill’.

The claims, which some in the poker world have found to be ‘intriguing and somewhat laughable’, have been made by Serge Pons, a self-titled marketing expert and apparently former SEO Manager for PokerStars and Full Tilt.

Pons’ revelations may never see the light of day, however, as he has allegedly been threatened with legal action by Amaya. Among the various claims of subterfuge Pons was set to reveal on his new site poker.wtf (which is ‘unavailable’ at the moment) were:

1. How Amaya was manipulating search engines

2. How Amaya hid gambling advertising behind editorial content

3. How Amaya operated in countries even where they have no licence and their domains constantly get blocked

4. How Amaya uses celebrities and other influential people to create a myth that poker is game of skill (???)

In a press release designed to promote the intended revelations on his now-blocked website, Pons confesses he “found it hard to sleep at night knowing that more people were getting addicted to online Poker” and wanted to expose the idea that online poker was “nothing like playing poker in a casino or with friends where skill was involved. In reality, online Poker was a game of luck where skill had nothing to do with it”.

Despite Pons’ insistence that his ‘former employers’ were deliberately using underhand methods to attract and keep new players, others in the poker world are less than convinced by this. Haley Hintze, contributing editor at Flush Draw, describes his actions as a “disgruntled former employee” trying to “embarrass his former employer by way of damaging revelations”and that many of Pons’ allegations “reek of silliness and stupidity”.