Player Profile: Mike Sexton

The way Mike Sexton tells his story, that telephone call in January of 2001 changed everything. Would he be willing to fly to India, a country he had never previously visited, and help some people he had never heard of set up an Internet poker site? This was Sexton's introduction to what would be known as Party Poker, the largest of the Internet card rooms.

Sexton was spending time in the poker parlors of Las Vegas at the time and recognized the appearance of opportunity when he saw it.

This is also known as being in the right place at the right time.

Within two weeks he was on a plane headed to India, ready to help shape a venture that would quickly grow to a size no one had anticipated.

As Sexton thinks of it now, "One of the most successful business stories in the history of the world." He continues, "I sat over there for a couple of months helping them develop the software for this site."

When the work was finished in India, Sexton headed for "another few months" in the Dominican Republic, where the customer support team was located at the time. Things began to happen at supersonic speed. "We launched Party Poker in August of 2001 and in June of 2005 they went public for nine billion dollars."

Even Sexton finds it difficult to believe how much has happened over a relatively short period of time.

Internet poker existed in 2001, but it was very much in its infancy.

"When I got involved (with the Party team)," Sexton explains, "the whole business was not all that big. Planet Poker was the first site ever on the Internet. By the time we started developing our site, Paradise Poker was far and away the leader in the industry."

The big thinkers at Party were not quite sure what to expect from their new creation. The first televised WPT tournament, the event that lit the fuse leading to the explosion of interest in poker, was not aired until March 2003.

The best of everything was still to come. "We didn't really feel we could catch Paradise Poker at that time. No one had any real vision about what was going to happen to Internet poker."

The company we now know as Party Poker already had an on-line gambling site, Sexton says. "They had the casino side of things, and when they got hold of me they were thinking of just adding another division to the company. No one thought of poker exploding as it has. They were just thinking that having a full casino made sense."

That poker would take over the party, so to speak . . . well, talk about surprises. "Where things really got busy in a hurry," Sexton says, "is they were the first Internet site to advertise on television."

Sexton had a lot to do with this as plans were made to crank up the World Poker Tour with televised poker tournaments.

Remembering the context within which decisions about advertising were being made, Sexton says Party Poker's bosses talked about doing some commercials.

The problem was no one knew then whether the WPT telecasts were going to be a big hit or a big miss.

The first tournament had not yet aired. Sexton laid out the situation out as he saw it.

"I told them I did not know any more than they did about whether World Poker Tour telecast would be success, but the fact is everyone who watches these things is going to be a poker player. It was a builtin audience . . .

"I told them I thought this was a perfect spot to advertise and do it in a big way."

The bosses tossed this around for awhile and came back saying they thought the thing to do would be to buy a couple of ads and see what happened.

Sexton shook his head at this thinking. No, no, no. He suggested buying as many ads as the company could get its hands on and do it for the entire season.

He thinks about that, remembering the way it all went down. Because this was a subject that was new to everyone - would the ads make a difference, would anyone care about the televised WPT tournament? - Party was able to negotiate deals that to this day have Sexton shaking his head.

Party could buy two 30- second ads per show, each of them going for less than $4,000. Sexton filmed them in LA and quickly became the face on the company.

"They not only bought the whole season. They bought the whole season of re-runs as well and they paid them cash up front for all those ads. That's something that had never been done before and they got a cheap rate because of that."

The result: viewers saw nothing but Party Poker ads no matter what day or event they happened to tune to. "It's the most phenomenal deal in terms of an investment with a good return I've ever seen because they parlayed that into billions of dollars. Everything was suddenly coming up roses for the Party Poker executives who had opened their cyber card room with the intention of doing nothing more than complementing their existing casino.

Poker quickly became the game everyone wanted to talk about and Sexton was even doing WPT commentary on the Travel Channel.

By 2001, Sexton had been a poker player for something close to 20 years. Never did have a regular paycheck in all that time. The promise of a check and a bonus, depending on how things worked out, sounded like a sweet deal that would give him a chance to visit some interesting places for several months.

"My thinking was that in case this goes over big it will be real good for me and if it doesn't, well, so what, at least I'll have some money for a period of time. I was single then, didn't have a family to worry about."

Sounded like a nice break from his Las Vegas routine.

"Part of the reason they probably liked me, and I don't know what other people they might have interviewed, is that if a guy has a family he has to pay attention to, he's probably not going to be able to spend months in India and more months in the Dominican Republic."

It's worth a laugh now as Sexton replays the scene in his mind, that first meeting once he got to India.

"Within 15 minutes it was absolutely clear none of the five guys on the poker team knew a thing in the world about poker. It just amaaaaaaazed me," drawing the word out, "that a company like this would want to develop a poker site when none of the guys assigned to get the job done knew one thing about it. They had looked at the other sites and saw what was happening but they didn't have any sense of the game itself."

They settled things with the decision that Sexton would simply tell them what the computer had to do to spread a game of no limit hold 'em and the "poker team," these five guys who did not know anything about poker would create the necessary program.

So Sexton began telling them that when this guy raises, these other people do this, this and this.

They were quickly working together like a welloiled team.

A bit more than four years after the launch Party Poker is - no doubt about it - the biggest of all Internet poker rooms.

"Every day we've got something like 70,000 people playing poker . . . It's incredible when you think of what cyber space does, putting all those people and tables in what we think of one room. You couldn't ever come close to something like that in a real casino."

Party's current registration total is "over five million" or a good million and a half more than second place Poker Stars.

"When we first started," Sexton says, "Probably 90 percent of our business was in the U.S. It's about 80 to 85 percent (U.S.) now. They're going after the international market far more than they used to. They recognize the potential for the expansion of poker around the globe."

Other poker sites, he adds, have put their own spins on a similar strategy as the rich menu of tournaments and big money events from Monte Carlo to Amsterdam and Las Vegas have brought the globalization of poker to those with something to sell.

Sexton was a well-established poker pro headquartered in Las Vegas when he responded to Party Poker's call. As a commentator now for the WPT telecasts, he can no longer play there but has recently participated in multiple seasons of the televised Poker Superstars Invitational.

But more than anything now he is called on to talk about poker and what it is becoming.

"There's no telling what the potential is in Asia. As we all know, the Asians are gamblers at heart and they're starting to love poker now. The World Poker Tour has even franchised a tour in the Philippines. That's certainly going to enhance on-line poker in that area, but Asia is probably going to be the prime target for most online gambling sites because of that potential . . ."

He hesitates, probably looking for words that create a sufficiently large picture. "It's just endless." How long can it all go on?

Sexton gives the question a "who knows" kind of shrug. "My fear has always been that you put poker on television seven days a week and people are going to get tired of watching it after awhile. The WPT shows on The Travel Channel does as well in re-runs as they do the first time around. That's why all the networks like it, but I'm thinking that's only the cream, the best shows are going to stay on top. The rest will fall by the way." The same goes for poker sites.

"When we started," he says, "there was maybe only three or four. Now there must be a couple hundred of them out there. They can't all survive but the top 10 will probably continue to do well. The rest of them are gonna struggle."