Straight Talk #1 - Who am I, and why should anyone care?

However… don’t you think it’s a bit strange that you don’t know who runs any other poker site? In fact, you probably don’t know anybody who works for any other poker site. But I bet many of you would know who runs Tesla, Apple, Facebook (Meta), Microsoft, and maybe Google, OpenAI, or Berkshire Hathaway.

It wasn’t always this way either. If you’ve been playing poker for a while, you might remember people like Roy Cooke, Rob Yong, Lee Jones, or WPT’s own Mike Sexton, who publicly represented various online poker sites while working there in senior positions.

In 2024, I’m bringing that back. Now you know who runs WPT Global, and who you can talk to. The best way to contact me is to mention me on Twitter (X). Send me your ideas and suggestions, let me know what you think can be better - I’d love to hear from you.

I’m delighted to share that I’ve been promoted to President at @wpt_global ! In this role I have the clear mandate to be more public facing and engage more with the poker community. So, what should we talk about?

— Alex Scott (@AlexScott72o) January 25, 2024

“Alright”, you might be thinking. “It's nice to have a person to talk to. But what are you actually going to do, besides talk?”

To explain that properly, I have to tell you a little about myself.

I first joined the poker industry in 2005, about 19 years ago at the time of writing. Throughout my career I’ve had three defining experiences:

• PokerStars: My first full-time job out of university, I joined PokerStars as an entry-level customer support specialist  and worked my way up over the years, spending time in Game Integrity, Poker Room Management and Product. During the time I was there, PokerStars had the most customer-centric culture I have ever experienced. All of us were empowered to make customers happy and were encouraged to do so as much as possible. It was at PokerStars that I first learned how to deliver a fantastic customer experience. I also learned the importance of Game Integrity to an online poker business. PokerStars invested real time and effort into it back then and it showed - smart players knew that cheating occasionally happened, but trusted that we would do the right thing when it did. 
   
• Full Tilt Poker: After PokerStars I joined Full Tilt to work on the product, leading the team that designed new software features. Full Tilt had the best software, and if it was still around it would be competitive even today. At Full Tilt, I learned how to deliver a great product, working with some truly excellent engineers. (Eventually, poker’s most promising challenger went down the drain because the company failed to protect players’ money. I learned a lot from that as well, and vowed never to repeat their mistakes).
   
• Microgaming: I joined Microgaming and worked my way up to lead its poker division. Microgaming was a company that sold casino software to other companies, and it only communicated via those companies and not directly with players. As a result, it didn’t have the trust of the community. I found ways to communicate with players nonetheless, and talk about what we were doing and why. At Microgaming I was also empowered to experiment and make bold changes. This approach sticks with me even today - try something new, measure it, keep what works and throw away what doesn’t. You’ll see a lot of this at WPT Global.
   

As you can see, each of these roles taught me something important about the online poker business that I bring to WPT Global today. We aspire to have the best customer experience and a completely transparent approach to communication, the fairest and most secure games, the best product, true player protection, and to bring something new and different to this industry. These things won’t happen overnight, but we will get there.

If you like the sound of where we’re going - keep an eye out for my next blog, where I’ll talk more about our plans for the customer experience.

-Alex