Many people are under the false impression that all jobs in the online poker industry revolve around a few key positions like Poker Room Manager, Marketing, and Software Engineering. While those are the most visible and obvious jobs there are all sorts of jobs in the online poker industry. Below is a list of the jobs that are commonly found at online poker sites.
Acquisition
– Country Management
– Affiliate Managers
– Online advertising
– Offline advertising
– SEO/PPC
– Website
– Copy Writer/Editor
– Graphic Artists
– PR / Corporate Communications
Retention
– Poker Room Management
– Tournament Management
– CS Agent
– VIP Hosts
– Promotion Specialist
– Email Specialist
– Loyalty
Operations
– Business Analysis/Intelligence
– Risk Management
– Compliance
– Legal
IT
– Software enginnering
– Product Management
– Networking
– IT Ops
Support Operations
– HR
– Finance
– Receptionist
– IS/IT Support
As you can see, most online poker sites break their business into compartmentalized areas of focus. However because of the dynamic nature of the online poker industry the lines can often become fuzzy. For instance, Acquisitions has the role of bringing customers in the door and Retention is supposed to keep them playing. But more often than not people in Retention roles play a large part in assisting Acquisitions by providing products and promotions for the Acquisitions team to promote. Likewise, in order to properly advertise promotions designed to keep players on the site the Retention team will often need to coordinate with the Acquisitions team to get the message out to players. And obviously roles like Operations, IT, and Support Ops lend a hand across several areas.
Worth bearing in mind is that each organization is unique and has evolved according to the background and experience of the management running the company so no job title has a hard and fast definition. For instance, at some online poker rooms the Product Manager is in charge of managing the software development of the product. At another poker room that same title may indicate that the role has overarching authority over everything poker as the entire offering is seen as a product.
There are also jobs considered in the online poker industry that don’t work for a specific online poker room. For instance, recruiters often specialize in online gaming and might focus on placing people specifically at online poker sites.
Likewise, a major force in the online poker industry are the affiliates who send players to the online poker sites in exchange for either a flat fee or a percentage of the rake generated by the players. Many affiliates have grown into full-fledged businesses of their own and employ everything from SEO experts to Business Intelligence specialists to help them grow their business.
There are also several businesses that specialize in selling products or services to online poker rooms. Probably the most obvious of these are payment solution providers. Other product/service providers offer outsourced affiliate management and outsourced loyalty scheme management. Consultants also fall into the services category and can range from WebTrends configuration specialists to accountants/auditors.
Last but certainly not least are the online and offline journalists who write about the online poker industry. Some write regular columns or are staff writers for online and offline publications while others specialize in tournament reporting.
I’ve probably still left a handful of important roles out and if I have, please feel free to ping me and I’ll update this document or leave a comment below. In future posts we’ll attempt to cover each role to give a better understanding of what each job does and how it fits into the overall picture.
