Dustin Iannotti remembers the first time he watched poker on television. It was during his college days, in the early 2000s, and while some readers will no doubt jump to mention the name Chris Moneymaker, it was Sammy Farha – the seasoned pro downed by the accountant – who caught Iannotti’s eye. “I remember vividly the first person I saw on my TV was Sammy Farha,” Iannotti recalls. “I was like, ‘Is this the coolest person in the world? Who is this guy with the cigarette?’”
On April 10, Iannotti, now the founder and director of Emmy award-winning video production studio Artisans on Fire, posted a 'call to arms' on Twitter/X. In the lengthy post, Iannotti claimed that "poker content needs an entirely new narrative," where storytelling and characters take center stage. It's a statement that resonates with PokerOrg, which since 2022 has been focused on finding new, vibrant ways to tell the dramatic human stories behind poker's biggest moments.
Iannotti's words generated a great deal of attention, mostly positive, from many notable names within the industry, including Garrett Adelstein, Daniel Negreanu, Maria Ho, Ryan Feldman and Joey Ingram.
Iannotti believes that many poker creators cater to their built-in audiences rather than attempting to expand them, and that there aren't enough character-driven narratives in an industry rife with one-of-a-kind personalities.
“I feel like we’ve only gone backwards for the last twenty years,” Iannotti tells us. “The only way the game grows is if we stop making game-focused content and start making human-focused content.”
And Iannotti did more than put out his call to arms. He's putting his effort where his mouth is and says that he is working on a potentially huge new documentary that he hopes will debut this summer – filmed during the 2024 WSOP Paradise festival and featuring many of modern poker's most exciting players. He wants it to be poker's Drive to Survive – the Netflix documentary that radically grew Formula1's fanbase thanks to a focus on the drivers, not the races.
Dwan, Hansen, Blom... and Iannotti
But before we lift the lid on that upcoming project, just who is Dustin Iannotti?
While those early images of Farha left an indelible mark on a young Iannotti, he recognized that a future as a professional player didn’t hold much promise (“Luckily, even in college, I knew that”). Still, he felt driven to explore alternative avenues within the poker industry, and an internship at Poker Royalty – a talent agency for poker players – led to a full-time position, before PokerStars came calling and the Isle of Man became Iannotti’s new home. “It’s always 45 degrees and McDonald’s was the gourmet restaurant on the island,” Iannotti tells us.
When PokerStars acquired Full Tilt Poker as part of it’s settlement with the US Department of Justice in 2012, Iannotti moved to Dublin to develop the marketing around the site’s Team Pros. “My first assignment was to fire 560 Team Pros and start fresh with three guys – Tom [Dwan], Gus [Hansen], and Viktor ['Isildur1' Blom],” he says. “I managed those three and that was quite a time in my life. I have some stories that would make good Twitter threads.”
Eventually, Iannotti’s path led him back to Las Vegas where he set out to start his own business and Artisans on Fire was born.
Telling the Keating story
Over the last decade, Iannotti and his team have collaborated with many of the biggest names in poker – Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, and Jason Koon, to name a few – and built a portfolio of content that reflects the company’s aims. While their upcoming documentary is set to realise their ambitions on a grander scale, another more recent project featuring Alan Keating is already making waves.
When Iannotti eventually connected with Keating, the resulting collaboration delivered one of the most compelling, unique narratives in poker. “One of the things Alan mentioned was that he wanted to figure out the right way to get his story out there, but he was really new to all of this,” Iannotti says.
For years, the mystique surrounding him had elevated Keating to an almost god-like figure in the community. Whether it was through his random acts of generosity or his utter fearlessness at the table, Keating had generated a great deal of intrigue – most especially when it came to his life off the felt. “He was very hesitant because he’s known as this James Bond, Gatsby-like character,” Iannotti tells us. “There’s this mystique and aura – he was aware of that perception and a bit worried to reveal too much.”
Iannotti recognized that maintaining some of the mystique Keating naturally cultivated was part of the appeal.
“I told him I thought it would work in his favor in some ways, especially with a YouTube channel where people craft these stories, but leave a little something to the imagination,” Iannotti tells us. “On the other hand, Alan thought that if he revealed some of the stuff people don’t expect – the personal side – it could potentially connect with a new audience of poker fans that no one’s tapped before. And that got us both excited.”
With an understanding about the style of content they want to create, the two set out to build a YouTube channel that centers around poker, but also showcases Keating’s glamorous, yet industrious life away from the game.
Keating's vision to break the mold aligns perfectly with Iannotti's production expertise. "Alan had this vision for cinematic storytelling, and I was immediately on board," Iannotti says. "He wanted to create something that felt like a cinematic event of his life, and our team was excited to help bring that production quality to his concept."
The results, thus far, speak for themselves. Since the channel’s debut one month ago, Keating has already accrued more than 50,000 subscribers with nearly 1,000,000 views on the four videos already released. While the channel has outpaced expectations, it wasn’t a guarantee that all of the content would resonate with viewers. “We were nervous when we finally pushed upload on the episode about the trip to the billionaire’s mansion in The Hamptons, but the video crushed all our expectations,” Iannotti says.
While the peeling back of the curtain that shrouds much of Keating’s life serves as the main attraction to the videos, the personal narratives that will emerge in the coming episodes are what Iannotti hopes people will connect strongly with. “I think it will come out of left field and be completely unexpected. It was deeply personal,” he tells us.
Poker's Queen's Gambit moment?
The Keating project is one way Iannotti and his team are challenging the status quo that exists within longer form poker video content. “I feel it’s a call to arms in a way – that we need to seek change and seek more value from content-rich pieces that don’t necessarily only take place at the tables,” Iannotti says. “That’s the centerpiece, but there’s gotta be that supplemental stuff.”
When Iannotti saw the impact that certain television shows had on increasing viewership and interest in other games – The Queen’s Gambit for chess, Drive to Survive for Formula 1, Full Swing for golf – he immediately recognized that there was potential for poker to experience a similar phenomenon.
“Queen’s Gambit gave chess its moment and it changed the course of the game from then on,” Iannotti says. “If you look at chess popularity graphs it just exploded.” While the rise of the poker vlogging space has, without a doubt, drawn more eyes to the game, poker hasn’t had its moment in the spotlight since the Moneymaker days.
Iannotti wants to create that moment.
“You couldn’t pay me to watch The Masters growing up, but now I’m watching and rooting for all the guys in Full Swing,” Iannotti continues. “That’s the power of this type of content and we need that in poker – poker deserves that moment. These people are so uniquely interesting.”
With the blueprint laid out for him, Iannotti began to formulate an idea that could incite poker’s big moment – a documentary in the same vein and style as the works cited above. It would eventually become a reality, filmed at the 2024 WSOP Paradise festival last December, but it would take a sustained effort to realize the ambition.
Paradise found
When GGPoker and its parent company NSUS Group, Inc. finalized the purchase of the World Series of Poker brand from Caesars’ Entertainment, Iannotti knew there was an opportunity at hand. Having previously worked with GGPoker, Iannotti had the right connections to pitch his project, but the timing wasn’t right.
“At the time, it was too soon. Long story short, I brought it up every six months for about four years. I was relentless.” Finally, with the sale of the World Series of Poker completed and the 2024 WSOP Paradise festival on the near horizon, the timing was right.
"They gave us 100% creative freedom," Iannotti explained. "We started with a small crew, but we wanted to do it right. We wanted to get all the biggest names."
Out of the 12 players approached, 11 agreed to the project – “Martin Kabrhel, I’m putting you on blast: we want to tell your story” – including Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Kristen Foxen, Faraz Jaka, Alan Keating, and Jesse Lonis. After shooting fourteen-hour days with a barebones crew, Iannotti had over 600 hours of footage to work with.
Thankfully, the poker gods showed their benevolent side and provided Iannotti and his team with poker-based narratives that matched the personalities involved. “I can’t tell you how many things lined up when we were shooting this thing,” he tells us. “It all lined up as if [the poker gods] were like, ‘Poker needs this, so we’re just gonna give you the wins back-to-back-to-back.’”
WSOP Paradise in The Bahamas provided a captivating backdrop, but also a wealth of fascinating, personal stories surrounding the action on the felt. From Kristen Foxen taking her next shot at mega-stardom after coming so close in last summer's WSOP Main Event, to Liv Boeree's record-breaking deep run, the winter series provided plenty of relatable human narratives to focus on – along with the dizzying sums of money at stake.
It's a combination that has all the ingredients to create a huge crossover hit, bringing poker stories to those who – like Iannotti with golf and Full Swing – may not have a natural interest in the game.
It wasn’t just the highs that Iannotti wanted to capture, however, and he made sure his subjects knew that before signing onto the project. “I let them know that me and my crew were going to be shameless,” Iannotti explains. “When you’re at your highest moment I promise you we’re going to cover that and you’re going to have it on camera, but we’re also going to be there when you really don’t want us there.”
In his typical fashion, Hellmuth was the only player to make a joke about the terms for participation. Iannotti recalls, “He goes, ‘Well, it depends on how I bust – if I happen to bust any of these tournaments – but I’m gonna f***ing win anyway so it doesn’t matter.’”
In terms of the project’s release date, Iannotti has his sights set on the start of this summer’s World Series of Poker. “There’s going to be a digital release because that’s the fastest way to get it to people, but there are other very exciting things in the works that I can’t talk too much about,” Iannotti tells us. “It would be very important for the poker community if that comes through.”
While his challenge to raise the stakes when it comes to storytelling in poker may have ruffled a few feathers in the community, there’s no denying that Iannotti has backed his words with action.
If the WSOP Paradise documentary delivers, the entire layout of the space could change dramatically. Iannotti tells us, “My fingers are crossed because when I think about what the next five years could look like if we get a chance to show these human stories on a world stage – which poker deserves – I think it opens the floodgates.”
Images courtesy of Antonio Abrego/PokerGO/Artisans on Fire.
