Lee Davy sits down with the founder of My Poker Pal to talk about his plans to put the community back into poker.
I don’t think there is anything more important in a person’s life than community. Stick Tom Hanks on a desert island and he starts drawing faces on footballs to keep him from going insane.
Paul Rimmer has spent 20-years in the poker industry, and during that time he has seen a lot of change. What’s bothering him the most? It’s the lack of community. As he told me during our jibber-jabber, “It’s all hoodies and sunglasses these days.”
Paul Rimmer wants the banter back, and this is how he is going to get it.
Who is Paul Rimmer?
“I’ve been in poker for 20-years, and was probably one of the first people to set up a pub league back in 2004. It was called The Premier Pub Poker League. I had a serious knee injury and couldn’t drive. I always had home games, and I got to the point where about 50 people wanted to play. So I set up a local league in a few pubs. That expanded. I got a few partners in and we created The Get Noticed Pub Poker League.”
What is My Poker Pal?
“First and foremost My Poker Pal is a community. You can think of it as poker’s version of Facebook. Our ethos is all about putting the social side of the game back into poker. It’s gone. I used to love all the banter, but now it’s all hoodies and sunglasses.
“We have a website where people can create profiles and start sharing their poker stories, problems and read what’s going on in the poker community. We aren’t making revenue from anyone. The website is free of charge. We are looking for bloggers and writers to use the site and get more exposure on there. We always want to keep the site free of charge.
“We have been in transition whilst we were creating a new site, but when we were at our peak we were getting 40,000 visitors per month, our Facebook reach was 150,000 per month, and we have about 6,000 Twitter followers.”
What else is going on?
“I’ve been working with Jamie Wilson, the CEO of Appitized. He builds and develops apps. We are launching a new app for the poker industry that we hope contains everything for poker.
“The app is going to have a game locator. Have you heard of iFindPoker? It’s an app that allows you to find a game of poker – and casinos, pub leagues or home games can use it to advertise their game. We have just absorbed them as a company and are excited about developing the app even further.
“We also have a meeting planned with MainEventTravel and are keen to develop a working relationship with them. Hopefully, we can get travel package information on the app as well.
“We are also developing partnerships in the US. We have been in discussion with several companies in the US and are preparing to take over a pub league that has 150,000 members, so we are very excited about that.”
It sounds like you have a lot on your plate.
“That’s not all, we are also launching our own version of pub poker leagues played via mobile. There is a big problem taking up space in pubs because players don’t spend a significant amount of money when playing. So we are going to create a mobile forum where you can be in one pub and another player can be in another – and we can play against each other. Then one day a week you can have a live final. We have to take advantage of the technology whilst still maintaining that pub poker league feel.
Do you run into regulatory issues with pub leagues?
“If it’s a normal pub the max buy-in is £5 with a max prize pool of £100. If it’s a private members club the prize pool limit is £2k. I have been in touch with the right people within the government and all these legislations will change in the next two years. They are killing pub poker leagues because the pubs just cannot gain enough benefit out of it.
Why play on your mobile app and not on Stars?
“This is where the community side of things come in. It’s all about the community. If you get to know people on My Poker Pal then you will know them when you play and get that social aspect of the game.”
I believe you have a project for prepaid cards?
“That’s true, it’s something I have been working on for six years now. It will be a prepaid card for poker players, called My Poker Card, and it will also be installed into the app. So, if you want to enter a pub poker league game you can use the money on the card.
“The cards themselves are from MasterCard. They will be available to use on online poker sites, restaurants and about 400 partner companies who are willing to give discounts to our cardholders – and we haven’t even scratched the surface yet. The cards will also be launched in America via the new pub poker league. We will also be running a poker festival in May, in Aspers Newcastle. The website for that will be live soon, so keep your eyes out for that.”
