The Man Who Changed Online Poker: First Isai Scheinberg Video Interview
GipsyTeam
4 September, 13:06317
Former PokerStars employees Brad Willis and Lee Jones interviewed Isai Scheinberg exclusively. This is the first time the founder of the largest room appears in front of the cameras.
In a traditional world, you'd probably be interviewed by someone who's completely objective and outside of your sphere of influence. But in this particular we wanted the opportunity to do it because you didn't just change our lives by hiring us to work for you at PokerStars, you also changed the entire poker world. Thank you for being here with us.
– Thank you for the invitation.
– When did you first play poker?
– I first played poker, as far as I can remember, when I was 10. A long time ago. Some friends taught me. We were young kids and having fun and including, playing some poker
– Help people understand what you were doing before you started PokerStars?
– I finished a master’s degree in Moscow University and I worked for IBM many years. And, you know, I did play poker on the side, in Toronto— especially when I was in Toronto. There was a period when there was a lot of poker in the city. And I decided that when I played poker, that I saw the, you know, the sites. I played sites like Paradise and PartyPoker, and I didn’t like them.
– What didn't you like about them?
– They had no tournaments. No real tournaments. I saw that, you know, people love poker. Players love tournaments. And when we already had PokerStars, we never stopped getting questions: “Why don’t we have more tournaments? More tournaments. More tournaments.” So we already had, if I remember correctly, at the absolute top time—we had 500,000 tournaments a day. That’s including heads-up, Sit-n-Gos, and so on. OK, I felt tournaments were a big thing missing. And other than that, PartyPoker had quite lousy software. Paradise was nice software, but both didn’t have tournaments.
– It's a big jump to go from working at IBM to starting a poker site. Did you continue working?
– We didn’t talk about starting a poker site, OK? What I wanted was to start a software company and develop the software—and basically wanted to develop software for poker, bridge, and chess. That was the original. So PYR for software, you know. I opened my own software company. That was the point, OK. Going and opening a site—that came a little bit later because we had very good software already, you know, in the beta state. And we were looking to license to someone and to do sites, because I had no idea how to run a site.
My son Mark, who was helping me to start, he had a little bit more idea about the site. He was very young, but still we were not ready.
So we talked to a few people and so on, and they all were, let’s say a little greedy. So they wanted to take it for free. So at some point, we decided, let’s start and try our own site. Precisely in 2001.
– When you started PYR and you started the software, we heard that the software developers wanted to see the hole cards as they were happening. And you said, "No. No way."
– It’s not precise, OK—a software developer didn’t want to see what it was. It was just a discussion. Should we, for test purposes, and so on…And I was absolutely against. And I didn’t have any fight on that. I said, “It’s a bad idea,” because it’s opening a can of worms. So we never had that. So that is how it happened. And we never had—until the end I was working there—nobody could see the cards live.
Not software developers. Not management. Not me. Not nobody.
– So Ultimate Bet happened and that could not have happened on PokerStars, because it was in the database and nobody else could see.
– Well, that’s true. But you know, beyond that also it’s a matter of decision as well. Even if we had this opportunity, some people could, you know, cut corners and so on, and it would be more difficult to control. But we didn’t have difficult control—because there was no option to do it.
– You made a decision very early on and started working heavily on customer service. Why did you think this was important at the time?
– Well, it was kind of a life experience. I thought, you know, the client is the best thing to satisfy and you do it by very good support. So, you know, we opened the initial big support center actually in Costa Rica. And we had professional people. We had engineers, teachers, and so on, who loved to play poker themselves, but were very intelligent. And also had discussion with players, sometimes with three or more at a time, and it worked very well.
And we were very happy. Our satisfaction was very high. From the start, we decided we’re not going to take calls. Because calls are difficult to answer. You have a difficult question, it takes time, but emails, we had a standard of answering within half an hour.
– When we worked for you, it was part of our job. Even though we weren't customer service at the time.
Why did you have us do that?
– Yeah. Because I thought, you know, this is how you learn what your customers are. You know, that you’re getting emails, and so on. So yes, we had this requirement for marketing, and beyond marketing, you know, for everyone. Senior management as well, to take some time and answer emails. If you cannot answer emails, so what is your use here?
– You actually answered a few customer emails yourself.
– Yeah, I did. This is how you feel that you know what’s going on, not just what you think is going on.
– You obviously became the biggest poker site in the world, and you're very well respected in that company. There were also hard times. I remember UIGEA passing and you never blinked, you kept working hard. What was your initial response?
– OK, look. When UIGEA happened my personal view and people around me, was that poker is a game of skill. And we had very prominent U.S. lawyers who confirmed that, and they confirmed that when UIGEA passed. But the UIGEA was very clearly for games of chance, not for games of skill. And so we reconfirmed our position which was further confirmed by federal courts as well—that poker is a game of skill and UIGEA doesn’t apply.
So we said, OK, the law passed, whatever way, and so on. But we never offered anything other than poker. We had a lot of people coming to us who wanted us to open, you know, casino games. I never wanted to do it.
– Over time, you moved the company to the Isle of Man. People say that they still see you walking around on the Isle of Man. What attracted you to this place and why did you stay?
– At some point I saw that the legislation and licensing concerns were going in Europe in a big way. That was a kind of feeling at that time. And so we decided we want to move to Europe. And to move to Europe, we looked at several registries, several jurisdictions, and so on. And we picked Isle of Man for two primary reasons.
It was very respected. The licensing was very respected there.
They had very good IT. They had a new, state-of-the-art IT center.
We were growing and growing, and we needed a very good data center. So in 2005 we went there.
– I was really excited when the World Poker Tour honored you and put you in its World Honors Room, and very excited to hear you speak there. You're back in Vegas, you're going to play the Main Event today. I'll venture to say, you don't need the money. You're doing it for a different reason, so, why are you doing it?
– Because I love to play tournaments, that’s why. And now I have a little bit of time, you know, to come to Vegas. I actually played the WSOP—not Main Event—in 1999.
Before we started the company, I was still working for IBM and so on. And I played a $2,500 event, made the money, and enjoyed it. So I still enjoy playing. If I will stop enjoying that, then I will not come. It’s true. It’s not for the money, but it’s a spirit kind of thing.
– I want to speak about a tournament you won (quite famously) the High Roller on the Isle of Man. Is it true that you were offered a deal once it got to heads up and you said "No thank you"?
All of Isai Scheinberg's cashes and wins
– You know, the truth is, I don’t really remember this. But I know when I played tournaments in Toronto and so on, I never took deals. That was my principle.
I’m not making deals. I’m playing poker. Deals are really when you need money. OK?
But for me, it’s playing poker. So yes, if if that’s true, and he offered—I just don’t remember. But, it wouldn't be a long discussion.
– You don't like to discuss your role in poker. But you understand that without you, poker would be completely different today?
– I think the two contributions that we made as a site were, first, we ran a very nice site with very good tournaments and treated players well. People basically said they loved to play poker on PokerStars not just because of the best liquidity, but because of all the other things as well. The second very important thing came not with UIGEA, but with Black Friday. We were very focused, and our first thought was: we need to give people their money back.
We had promised it all the time, and now was the moment. When we exited the U.S., we were forced to, but basically you can say yes, though not legally. We exited and immediately talked to the lawyer and said we wanted to pay the money back. We had the money. The lawyer said, "No, no, no, it will take a year," and I said, "No year. Now." We paid it within a week or two. The DOJ was under pressure too—from tournament players and other players—so they liked the fact that we wanted and were able to pay the money back. They gave authorization to processors to do it, and we just paid.
A couple of months later, when Full Tilt was not able to pay, we were focused on finding a way to pay Full Tilt players. That was an industry thing. Hundreds of thousands of players were out of money. That was going to have a deep impact at that time. So we did this too. The DOJ was very unusual in this case. They sold the assets of one defendant to another defendant. That had never happened before.
We decided to pay. And another priority at the time was our people. We decided that we were not going to fire anyone just because there was no work. We didn’t fire anyone. Costa Rica was the main center servicing us—we didn’t fire them. Australia—we didn’t fire one person. We just continued to serve, and in Europe we grew a lot, so we could achieve that.
Thank you for thanking me, but it was kind of in our spirit of doing things. Customers and employees—those are the two most important things. Money comes after that, not before.
– What is Isai Scheinberg doing today?
– First, I have grandkids, and that is important—very important activity. I also participated quite a lot in the chess world. My father was a chess player. He played in the Chess Olympiad for Lithuania. I played in school, but never after that, other than a couple of games a year. But I went to Chess.com and started to play online. I liked it, and I still like it. I play chess games every day now.
We bought some shares in Chess.com as well. That was for a couple of years after all this. Now I also help my sons to manage their businesses, their money, and so on.
We do a lot of charity. We do a lot of charity in the Isle of Man, and we do a lot of charity worldwide.
He does have—look, when we help different charity projects, the whole family is usually involved for any significant contribution. Rob has Dog Tales. It’s a dog rescue, and a very famous one in the world. They take dogs from all over, not just from Canada. He now has an animal hospital as well.
– Are you not at all interested in returning to the poker business?
– I do get suggestions from time to time. But I find it difficult to see a reason for me, because to repeat what we did—it’s probably too late now. So not for now. At least not for now. Maybe tomorrow.
– When you're gone, how do you want people to remember you?
– I think what we discussed before—what I want you to remember—is that millions of people got their money back because of decisions we made. I'm glad.
Chris Moneymaker had some heartfelt words about Isai Scheinberg following his interview. He spoke about the lack of Hall of Fame status, and how PokerStars did things differently under Isai's direction.
I think the game should recognize him. I think he should be in. So, as a Hall of Fame member, I get 10 votes almost every year. I give him 10 votes. He’s been on the ballot since I was. I think Isai should be in over a lot of people—myself included. I mean, you know, he should be in the Hall of Fame. The fact that he's not is, like I said, criminal.
Kind of like me. I'm in the Hall of Fame, but I could care less either. I truly don't think he cares. Building PokerStars was something that was like a pet project for him. I won the Main Event and their deposits went up like a thousand percent.
Obviously, they did all the right things. They pushed all the right buttons and did all the right business things to build PokerStars into a very successful, great company. And they did that through customer service and taking care of the players. Isai, at the end of the first year, basically came back and said, "We sorely misjudged your impact and the game and what it's done to our company, so we're going to tear up your contract and do a different one." At that point, he had me for as long as he wanted me.
I know Isai spent hours upon hours upon hours on Two Plus Two, reading the forums and getting feedback, listening to the players. I remember the first PCA we had—it was on a cruise ship. It wasn't in the Bahamas, it was on a cruise ship, and both Isai and Mark were on the ship as guests. No one knew that they owned PokerStars.
Obviously, some people probably knew—I knew, of course—and there were some others I'm sure that knew. But the average guest had no idea that the owner and his son were just hanging out on this cruise ship with the passengers and the players. They really did like to be part of the community and, again, get feedback.
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