Bilingual, then economics
I was born in Blackpool to an English mother and a French father and grew up in both languages, with every summer from 1995 to 2006 spent near Lille. Then a BSc in Economics in Manchester (2:1, 2010). My dissertation was about why people overestimate small chances of a big win. I didn't realise I was writing my own career brief.
Behind the table
It was a bad year to be a graduate, so when a friend from halls suggested a dealer school at a Manchester casino, I went. Eight weeks later I held a Personal Functional Licence from the Gambling Commission, and for two years I dealt roulette, blackjack, three-card poker and casino hold'em. It is where I learned what house edge looks like on actual people, and why nobody's roulette system has ever worked.
In 2011 an older regular lost a serious amount of money over a year, in front of me, one polite evening at a time. I don't treat responsible gambling as a box to tick at the bottom of a page. That is why.
Malta, payments and a lot of German
In November 2012 I moved to Malta to join the payments and KYC department of an MGA-licensed operator, in the German-speaking team covering Germany and Austria. For four years I wrote to players in German every day about delayed withdrawals, document checks and voided bonuses. That is where I learned why withdrawals really get delayed, and which bonus clauses get enforced and which are there for decoration. I can't say where I worked, and I won't.
In February 2016 a UK affiliate owner paid me for my first text, a review of payment methods. By August I was freelance.
A compliance officer and a Google quality rater want the same thing: a page that tells the truth, in order, with sources. That's not a constraint. That's the brief.
Valencia, and two new laws
I spent five years in Valencia as a registered autónoma, with a Spanish bank account I still use, and in January 2018 I adopted Pip, a galgo from a shelter outside the city. Spain's advertising decree arrived in November 2020 and was fully in force by the end of summer 2021, so I spent that year rewriting Spanish pages to stop saying things they could no longer say. On 1 July 2021 Germany's new State Treaty (GlüStV 2021) came into force, and German became my second main market. In September 2021 I moved back to Malta.
Belgium, Germany, and the small print
Since September 2021 I've worked from Sliema, mostly for Belgium, France, Germany and Austria. Spain, the UK and international casinos make up the rest.
Belgium is the strict one: 21+ for online casino, an advertising ban that keeps tightening, a regulator that reads. I think of a Belgian page as the hardest test a text can pass. German copy I draft myself and a native reader proofreads. Betting came in through football: match previews with odds and line-ups pulled the same morning, the most time-sensitive work I do and the most fun.