Over 100 Junior Chamber of Commerce members and guests were introduced to the world of eGaming and PokerStars at a breakfast event held during the Isle of Man round of the UK & Ireland Poker Tour.

Presented by Michael Josem, Head of PokerStars Public Relations and Lee Jones, Head of Poker Communications, the scale of the world’s largest online poker operator was made apparent with some impressive statistics:

• 60 million players across 220 countries – bigger in population than Italy, just behind the United Kingdom
• 100 billion hands have been dealt to date – as many as there are stars in the Milky Way
• 225,000 concurrent tournament players can be served from Manx Telecom’s Douglas North data centre – two-and-a-half times the capacity of Wembley Stadium

Despite being one of the island’s largest employers, with 1,700 staff globally and 27 languages spoken at their Onchan Head offices, there’s still a strong sense of family values across the business with 81 babies born to employees in the last year and a strong recognition of social responsibility; a team of 5 make up the Responsible Gaming Team, ensuring players displaying traits of ‘problem gaming’ are provided with appropriate help and guidance.

Commenting on the event, JCC Chair Owen Cutajar said ‘It has been a great pleasure to work with PokerStars to bring this event to our members. PokerStars have been massively successful and we hope that listening to them has helped inspire our members and their guests. Our events calendar is always packed with varied and interesting events, and information on how to join can be found on our website at www.jcc.im’

Pic caption (L to R): PokerStars Head of Poker Communications Lee Jones, PokerStars Head of Public Relations Michael Josem, JCC President Chris Darnill.