PokerStrategy.com is an online community for people interested in online poker. Even though a lot of the web site is publicly available, chosing a nickname and signing up is necessary to be active in the community. Until November 2008, around 1,300,000 members signed up. PokerStrategy sees itself also as a poker school, its market area spans 14 languages, English, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese being amongst them. In terms of web traffic, PokerStrategy is the most popular information page on the topic poker world-wide History The project was started in 2005 by the German Oxford student and former StarCraft player Dominik Kofert. He developed the website together with chess grand master Matthias Wahls, who retired from the project. In the commencements being just a non-profit web forum, PokerStrategy is today operated by Swerford Holdings Ltd. from Gibraltar. Concept Besides its forum, PokerStrategy.com offers learning materials, videos and news around poker. In late 2008, typical social networking features were added to the website such as personal profiles, friends list, sending messages and a chat. Editorial Content Most of the editorial content is related to the theory of poker and learning and mastering the game. The articles and videos are created partly by professional editors and partly by the community itself. Member Status Everyone starts as a basic user who does not have special privileges. As a basic user, you have access to learning material for beginners and public areas of the web forum. Further editorial content, videos and other features are activated on reaching a certain member status level. Higher member status levels are accessible through the playing volume on online poker rooms. Business Model PokerStrategy.com itself does not offer to play online poker. Revenue for the website is generated by brokering between the players and the online poker rooms. The legalty of online poker is questionable in many countries. Criticism Critics warn that the danger of gambling addiction is high in poker. Even though PokerStrategy does not offer to play poker for real money itself, it still advertises for online poker rooms as an basic element of their business model. For users in some countries such as the US or Germany, the legal status of playing online poker is questionable.