I grew up on Melbourne's gaming floors and turned a lifelong passion for pokies into a career. Now I'm the resident pokies expert at Sun Vegas Casino, breaking down the games I love for players who want to understand what's really going on.
From watching my dad work the casino floor to writing about the machines professionally — it was always going to end up here.
My connection to pokies started before I ever pulled a lever myself. Growing up in Melbourne, my father worked in the casino industry for over twenty years — floor management at Crown, then consulting for smaller venues across Victoria. The gaming floor wasn't some mysterious place to me; it was where Dad went to work. I'd hear him talk about machine placements, player behaviour, return cycles. By the time I was a teenager, I understood volatility profiles before I knew the term for them.
I studied Media & Communications at RMIT, with a minor in Digital Marketing — partly because I wanted to write, and partly because I'd already figured out that the gambling industry's biggest gap wasn't technology or game design, it was communication. The way operators talked to players was either patronising or deliberately vague, and I thought there was room for someone who could bridge that gap honestly.
After uni I spent time working in venues, then moved into content, and eventually found my way to Sun Vegas Casino where I now write about the thing I've been obsessed with since I was fifteen. My approach is simple: I play the games, I understand the maths, and I explain it like I'm talking to a mate — because that's what I wish someone had done for me when I was starting out.
Every role taught me something different about how players think and what they actually need.
Years of floor time and thousands of hours on the machines give me a perspective most writers don't have.