Jeanne David, one half of the latest pairing of inductees to the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, may not be a household name in the poker community on the level of her counterpart Kristen Foxen – but she should be. If you’ve played regulated online poker within the United States in the days since Black Friday, you owe David a debt of gratitude.
For 14 years, David led the Responsible Gaming team at PokerStars, paving the way for the site’s current presence in certain regulated territories within the United States. With her time at PokerStars in the rearview, David is embracing her retirement and spending a lot of time at the mixed game tables in Las Vegas.
PokerOrg spoke with David in the wake of her well-deserved induction into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame.
For those who aren’t aware, can you tell us about your background and how poker came into your life?
I grew up in the 70s. It was the time of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. I went to the University of Arizona – took the drugs part a lot more seriously than my education, dropped out. This was 1973/74 and I just dove headfirst into the drug world. I was caught up in that for about 10 years. You name it, I did it. By 1982, I had hit three or four detoxes, rehabs. I got into some legal trouble and walked into my last long-term residential rehab and never looked back.
It was a very long-term community, it was a lifestyle. Even after I graduated from the program, I stayed there. I worked as a substance abuse counselor and went back to school. By 1986, I had enough and I left there with a pretty junky, broken-down car and $50 in my pocket. I drove for three days to New York and eventually got a job in the substance abuse world at Samaritan Village. I stayed there for 15 years. I went back to school, I got my Master’s degree in social work at 50 years old. I climbed the ladder and became director of the largest residential substance abuse program in New York City. It was in the South Bronx.
Around that time, in 2001, I discovered online poker. I was playing home games forever, but I found PokerStars’ beta test site and I was playing on that. Eventually, someone said, ‘Hey, you can go to Atlantic City and play that game Oklahoma that we play in the home games. You only have to put in $40 and you can play all day.’ They were talking about Omaha Hi-Lo. So, we got in an RV and went to Atlantic City for the weekend. $800 later –that I lost – I was in love with this game.
By 2004, I had people coming in to talk about wanting to get high and all I can think about is: if I had just raised or three-bet that guy this morning I could have won the tournament. And I knew it was my time, I knew I had to get out of there.
You went for it.
I just went for it. I did still work in addiction, but I hated the job. I just wanted to leave every day to play poker. In 2006, the UIGEA was passed, making online poker illegal. Isai [Scheinberg] was going to do everything that he needed to do to get the site regulated. So, he put out a job, a job listing for the head of Responsible Gaming. I had a phone call interview with Isai, he was living on the Isle of Man at the time. And he said, ‘You have all the qualifications – a master’s degree in social work, experience with addiction counseling, you play poker – but you’d be part of the poker room management team, what do you know about PokerStars?’
And I said, ‘Isai, I’ve been playing on your site since you opened the doors. I never missed a day, not even when I was sick.’ Then he asks, ‘Do you think you have a gambling problem?’ And I said, ‘Probably.’
Then he says, ‘Okay, when can you start?’
That’s how I got the job.
As far as job interview stories go, that’s a pretty good one.
We talked for a long time and I could hardly understand what he was saying because his accent was so thick and I wasn’t used to it yet. Anyway, I got the job.
What did your role at PokerStars entail?
In the beginning, my entire job was to set up responsible gaming measures so we can get regulated – first in the UK and then in the United States. We put in place safe practices and showed people that they can use our self-exclusion programs, our betting limits, our table limits. Of course, later, my job became a little bigger. I was testifying in front of State Senate Committees on responsible gaming and safe practices, in Michigan and Nevada.
Same thing up in Sacramento, California. I went there with Daniel Negreanu and Jason Somerville to talk to a bunch of senators about what we do at PokerStars. Same thing in New Jersey. I spoke in front of a Parliament Committee in the Netherlands, they broadcast it all over the country. They were looking to regulate online poker and I had to talk to them because nobody else did what we did at the time. Partypoker, Full Tilt Poker – they didn’t have any of these practices set up. It’s kind of funny, if you look at other sites that are still around, a lot of their wording on responsible gaming is my wording.
You were a pioneer.
In responsible gaming, yes. Nobody else was doing it.
So, essentially, you laid the groundwork for responsible gaming practices in online poker?
Pretty much. They didn’t exist before I had that job. It was just me for a while, but I ended up with a team of 15 staff who were remarkable. I worked there for 15 years, five of them living on the Isle of Man, until I retired in 2020.
And since retiring you’ve been focused on playing poker and enjoying yourself?
The short answer is, yes.
The thing is, I never slowed down when I retired, you know, I became very involved. I’m a mixed game player and if you look at my Hendon Mob the $250,000 isn’t anything special – especially when I’m standing next to Kristen Foxen’s $8,000,000 – but all of my cashes except a few come from mixed games.
In 2020, I decided I would start this list, this distribution list, because sometimes there would be a tournament series and I had a few people I would reach out to when I found out about stuff. Today, that list has grown to over 350 players. When there’s a big series like the WSOP or NAPT, I send out an email and attach the schedules, the structures – so everybody has it right at their fingertips if they want to play mixed games.
Jeanne David at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
I can sit at a no-limit table and not know anybody, which is kind of cool, but when I walk into a mixed-game tournament – we all know each other. We know everybody’s life story, we’re all friends. There’s a camaraderie around the mixed games community because it’s so much smaller.
Around 2012, I joined a H.O.R.S.E. league where they sent players to the WSOP every summer. I took that over about five years ago and we have 36 players. We send 10 people to the WSOP each year and right now it’s a four-year wait list to get in.
That’s insane, you have to wait four years to join the group?
Everybody wants to be in it now, it’s crazy. We only take 36 players because any more is just too hard to manage. We’ve been playing together for years and we meet once a month. It’s fantastic.
I kind of want to be in the H.O.R.S.E league now – it’s so exclusive.
It’s funny because a lot of players join because they don’t know how to play mixed games and they want to learn. And this is the easiest way to learn. They’re playing with the best and so the new players learn from them as they’re playing.
That sounds like a good way to learn. What piqued your interest in mixed games initially?
My brain wants to work a lot faster than I’m ready to let it. So, to me, no limit is one of the most boring card games you can play. I started playing Stud when I was seven years old – my grandfather taught me to play cards and I’ve been playing my whole life. When I did learn about no-limit, I said ‘No, I’d much rather play mixed games.’
When I started playing, I would drive up to Mohegan Sun on the weekends. I would drive three hours to play a $50 Omaha tournament and everybody was excited to see me. I thought they really liked me, but they just wanted my money and they knew I was terrible. They’d say, ‘Come on, we have an open seat in the cash game. Come on, play.’
And then someone else would say, ‘Oh, I’ll play.’ They’d be like, ‘No, we’re saving the seat for her.’
I really did think they liked me. Well, I learned pretty quickly they didn’t care who I was – they liked me in the game because I was a losing player. So, I started reading books. I must have read 50 books on everything you can imagine. I started learning about the game and using what I read in the books. And I started getting better. I’ll never forget the day when I came in and they said, ‘Sorry, we’re full.’
Even though they had two seats open.
They didn’t want your action anymore. What about plans for the future? Anything exciting on the horizon?
It’s funny, I retired in December of 2020 and then, in February, everything shut down because of COVID. When all the bans were lifted, I started going on cruises with my friends. I waited almost 40 years to do it again, the last one I went on was in the 80s, but I never had such a good time as I did when I got on that ship. So, my plan is to travel a little more around the United States. I did a lot of traveling when I was in Europe, I played all the EPT events.
I think now my focus will be on the WSOP and the Circuit events. Gotta win that ring and that bracelet.