When online poker was launched at the beginning of the century, our industry fell almost instantly in love with the innovative new business model. Driven by a high profile branding and marketing strategy, the poker sector grew spectacularly and became a fashionable and impressive mainstream success.

The speed of customer acquisition and the market place concentration that followed explains why today, most of the small poker operators no longer exist. As Marcellus said to Horatio in Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. Everyone knows that because operators were unable to protect the integrity of their fast growing ecosystem, professional players – often referred to as sharks – greedily ate all the (amateur) fishes, thus emptying the sea.

Since daily fantasy sports (DFS) is in the process of growing at rates similar to the poker sector’s and as the social mechanism of the two games are quite similar, at Oulala, we think that it is critical for our sector’s future to learn lessons from the poker industry. In other words, what systems, procedures and rules should be written by operators, to enable the professionals to exist without endangering everyone else?

1) Keep the Megalodon away