Lee James Gwilliam

Tired of comparison websites that you know are being paid to say positive things? That was me in 2001. I got started in e-commerce, ironically, by accident. Selling on eBay when it launched in the UK. I quickly realised that most sellers had very little knowledge of the products they were selling – but were very effective at marketing. This led to consumers often not getting the product that was the best for their needs – sometimes without even knowing they could have had something more suitable.

At the time I believed that people who had a passion for something could have a viable business model by selling the right product, to the right people through genuine knowledge and expertise, regardless of the industry. Twenty years later I still feel that’s the case and it’s one of the principles behind CasinoSource, that’s why I work here.

I moved to Malta in 2009, partly because of a great local cash poker scene. During this time, I was still consulting for online comparison sites in the UK but, remote working was not as popular as now and I really wanted to try and focus on working with local clients. This is difficult on an Island as small as Malta – there is neither a Maltese Amazon nor eBay site!

Outside of Poker, I was supplementing the bankroll by testing and reviewing online Poker sites, live dealer casinos and writing reviews of new slot games. I was pretty sure I had a good perspective as a player but I really wanted to know the inner workings of the industry. So, I went off to work in an online casino – customer service, VIP player management, promotions – I got to see how it all really worked from the inside.

Armed with both perspectives, for the last six years, I’ve been working exclusively for comparison websites like CasinoSource to try and bring that insider knowledge to other players. I quickly realised most comparison sites weren’t doing a very honest job and I felt we could compete with that – thousands of players a month on CasinoSource worldwide seem to agree!

The nature of a senior role sadly means I don’t get to spend as much time as I used to test sites or games myself. My job is to recruit, train and lead the CasinoSource team. I’m lucky there, we’ve steadily and carefully collected a really great team of experts from the industry and we will continue to do so.

We can only do so much or grow so fast, especially as we have a slight handicap against our competition that we won’t promote online casinos unless they pass some pretty stringent requirements for both the quality of the product and the way they treat players. A big part of my day-to-day is prioritising our work to try and make sure we bring the maximum value to players at any given time.