Amidst all the bad news in the online poker world these days, there is one development that I find very exciting. Two news sites have launched recently, both promising to cover the online poker industry without the conflicts of interest that come from accepting advertisement from the industry itself.
I think it’s fair to say that the current state of online poker news is abysmal. Virtually every important scandal and controversy is uncovered by players themselves on forums such as Two Plus Two rather than by the so-called news sites, which have mostly been marketing tools of online poker companies rather than objective reporters of goings-on in the industry. There were some outlets, especially the Two Plus Two Pokercast, that did an admirable job of covering controversial issues despite their sponsorship, but there were none that were free of any potential conflict interest.
Enter Subject: Poker and Pokerfuse. Noah “NoahSD” Stephens-Davidowitz, best known for his detailed statistical analysis suggesting collusion between StoxTrader and Kinetica, is the managing editor at Subject: Poker, which promises
Our goal at Subject: Poker is to provide the community with important information and solid, unbiased analysis, not to make money. It’s extremely important to us that our readers know that we have no conflict of interests. So, we will never take money from casinos, online poker sites, or any other business that we expect to write about.
Noah’s involvement is already enough to give me confidence in the site, but the staff also includes Nate Meyvis, Brian Horton, and several other online poker players with both the wherewithal and the integrity to provide the objective reporting that this industry badly needs.
Pokerfuse makes a similar claim:
[O]ur promise to the reader is simple: We will never accept affiliation or endorsement – or otherwise promote – an online poker room or network.
Our aims are:
- To report news related to online poker without being restrained by our sponsors or endorsements, and without any potential conflict of interest
- To focus specifically on online poker
- To promote internet poker in a positive light as a legal, regulated profession and recreation
- To build a successful media business without relying on the online affiliate model
The only thing I find odd about their site is that while they claim to be “built by online professional poker players”, there is no information about who the people managing or writing for the site are. I haven’t seen anything on the site to suggest that they’re anything other than the independent news source they claim to be, but I am very curious to know who is behind this project.
Whereas Subject:Poker explicitly states that, “If our site remains ad-free and continues to operate at a slight loss, we’ll be happy as long as we can continue to provide our readers with quality content without any real or perceived conflict of interest,” the last line of the above quote from Pokerfuse suggests that they are interested in making money in some way. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not currently clear what their revenue source will be, and that information will be essential to determining exactly how objective they’re able to be.
Here’s hoping that both of these sites become trusted, objective, and independent sources of poker news. There are some established interests that might prefer not to have such a thing, but it’s certainly in the interests of players, and I think overall the industry will be better for it as well.
Interview with Dan Fleyshman is interesting.
Interview with “Poker Professor” would be much more interesting.
I wonder why it took so long for this to emerge?
I agree the current poker news sites have poor incentives, but they are also lacking competition from non-poker news outlets. For example, a baseball news site likely gets most of their funding from MLB, but they cannot turn into a shill because general media and general sports media hold them accountable. It seems part of our solution involves getting more generalist media to cover online poker.
Also, I see it as a positive so many poker scandals have been identified or uncovered by the player community. No one watches over your interests better than you do yourself. This is why I am not a fan of poker regulation in the U.S. Wall Street is one of the most heavily regulated industries, and it is a mess. Regulators usually become captive to those they regulate, and online poker will not be any different.
A community of self-interested players and a competitive media market are our best hope for fair play.
Nice post. I especially agree with your last sentence.
Noah is a joke he recently admitted that everything he found on Stoxtrader was actually irrelevant. He tried to make a name off of ruining someone else life.
Link?
Hi Foucault, thanks for the write-up. You make a good point about the lack of information regarding who’s behind it. This initially was by design; we wanted to build a reputation of our site based on our news output, not from the reputations of those behind it.
However we all see the need for transparency. High on my todo list is start a pokerfuse blog, where we’ll have space to talk more about the team, new developments and goals for the future.
For now, let me know introduce myself: My name is Nick, I go by “Hood” on the various forums. I’ve been a professional poker player for around four years, and been around the gambling industry for many years now. These days (when I can find the time) I play mid to high-stakes limit hold’em. I’m a coach and video producer for Drag The Bar, and I’ve posted extensively in the past on 2+2 and Deuces Cracked. My personal blog is at sickread.com.
Thanks again!
Sorry just to clarify (I thought this would show up on the comment), I’m one of the co-founders of pokerfuse.
Sorry I’m so slow in responding to this. I really appreciate your stopping by to introduce yourself, and your work on the site in general. Best of luck with it going forward!
Hello, my name is Sean Donovan I’m a part time poker player and part time college student from long island, New York. Poker is a huge passion of mine and since I will be graduating soon it is time to find a real job. I could not imagine working a traditional 9-5 unless its in the world of poker. I am willing to start at the very bottom and do whatever it takes to get to where I want to be. I’m a very well spoken, outgoing, organized, person that will find a job in poker and if I have a chance at thinkingpoker.net I would be more than happy to send a resume and be present for an interview. Please send an email if I would be considered.
Thanks,
Sean