JONATHAN EDELSHAIM

Jonathan and I were business associates for several years in both my Casino.dk & Coinflip.com days. Yes practically my entire career as affiliate.

In my Casino.dk days we were promoting 888.com via Tradal later renamed to Empire Online Ltd. After Empire Online sold Empire Poker our trust in Tradal vanished so we went directly to 888.com instead of dealing with middlemen. This was a wise choice and how we came to work together since Jonathan was the boss of my contact person at 888.com.

Jonathan possess a high level of knowledge about the online poker industry and a very professional attitude towards his business associates and partners.

After building the Affiliate team into a team of 12 dedicated affiliate managers Jonathan moved to Dragonfish which is 888.com B2B business. He spend the last two years at 888.com as 888poker's Marketing Manager. In case you did no know 888poker has been the most rapid growing poker room in the world the past 2 years.

Outside work he is a nice guy and you can count on him when you need a beer and a catch up talk.

Jonathan worked his way up in 888.com and became head of the Affiliate department overseeing the affiliate program and its many affiliate account managers. Jonathan currently resides in Israel with his family.

What has been the biggest change in online poker?

Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). Many will say Black Friday but I think this is where the problems started, with 2 poker rooms growing in liquidity to levels others could not compete with. UIGEA essentially gave PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker a huge advantage, and perhaps this started the regulation chaos we currently witness in EU.

Anything you miss from the past?
I miss more competition. More strong brands, more decent options for players to choose from, more players in the general pool, more wild games and action...

Has something changed for the better?
Some decent software innovation. Most of all 'fast poker' products. I also believe, whether bad or good, that operators now understand the dynamics of poker networks better.

What do you expect will happen in online poker the coming years?
Wow... In the coming 2-3 years, we'll hopefully see movement towards markets less explored like Latin America & Asia. [In Brazil alone there are more than 250 million people and poker is legal]. Hopefully we'll see something happening in the US on a federal level but I doubt it will happen.

I do believe we'll see the EU regulated markets working together at some point otherwise they will find less and less operators spending time and money on online poker. I think we'll also see a few new or existing small rooms separating from their networks and trying to go solo. [Read more about Poker Room's Sold over the past years and various companies attempt to try their luck on their own]