Phil Galfond Approved to Play and Stream on Run It Once Poker Phil Galfond Approved to Play and Stream on Run It Once Poker
Key Takeaways
  • Galfond will be streaming daily on Run It Once’s official Twitch channel from August 30.
  • It is very rare for a company founder to be authorized to play on their own site.
  • The software was recently updated to add resizeable tables and many other features.

Phil Galfond, respected professional poker player and founder of online poker room Run it Once Poker, has announced that he will soon be playing and streaming from his own real money online poker site.

In his latest blog titled “Let’s Play Some Cards,” Galfond announced that he has been approved, presumably by regulators, to play on his own site. He is seeking to bring attention and rebuild site traffic by inviting players to play with him. A special promotion will give extra cash to anyone that stacks him at the tables.

“Recently, I’ve gotten approval to play on Run It Once Poker with you all (and I’m excited about it)! We had to make a couple of changes in order to make this happen,” Galfond explained in his blog.

“I’ve become the first non-anonymous player on Run It Once Poker. If I’m at your table, I won’t know who you are, but you’ll see my name and avatar,” Galfond wrote.

It is very rare for an executive of an online poker room to play on their own site. It is normally prohibited either at the regulatory level or at least by company policy. However, online poker room ambassadors—who play and stream on the site while also collecting a salary and may also be involved in day-to-day decisions of the room—are ubiquitous online. Patrick Leonard, at partypoker, epitomizes this role.

Phil Galfond now straddles both these roles and may have shifted more into the latter bracket than the former in order to receive approval to play for real money online.