- “Players Speak! The Online Poker Community’s Perspective,” a panel at the iGBA in Las Vegas this afternoon, will be hosted by Marco Valerio.
- Valerio hopes an open dialog will correct an animosity” he sees between the industry and its players.
As online poker creeps back into the US, through legislation and reform, the players’ voice must be heard—that’s the idea behind a discussion later Thursday afternoon at the 2013 iGaming North America conference (iGNA) in Las Vegas.
The discussion is being moderated at Planet Hollywood by Marco Valerio, US promotional manager of Global Poker Index, who used his former QuadJacks podcast as a megaphone for the voice of players in the immediate days after Black Friday.
“There has historically been a huge communication gap between the American casino industry and the online poker community, because US casinos have been burning the books of online gaming for years,” Valerio wrote on 2+2 in a thread requesting player input ahead of the conference.
“Now they suddenly find themselves with the task of not only having to bring it 'back’ to the States post-Black Friday, but also having to live up to the standards of a sophisticated community that matured despite its neglect,” he added.
Valerio will be joined by Matt Kaufman, editor of PokerStrategy, Collin Moshman, leader of Team Moshman Staking and Coaching, and Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu.
“The gamer’s perspective is perennially missing, completely absent,” Valerio told Mark Gahagan on the CardRunners Rabbit Hunt podcast. “This animosity there’s been between these gaming interests and the poker playing community has made it so that we are really under-represented. I think that’s awful. I think that’s dangerous and I think that’s just stupid—not to seize this chance as the industry is reforming itself here in America before our eyes.”
