Voice of the Players: David Lappin Joins PokerStars as Ambassador
In Paris on Wednesday, PokerStars announced the latest addition to its roster of official Ambassadors–the winner of the incomparable contest to earn a year-long sponsorship deal via the PokerStars Live League.
The latest man to wear the familiar Red Spade is David Lappin, the Irish poker pro, writer, commentator and podcaster, who accepted his patch from PokerStars staff at a break in play on Day 2 of the EPT Paris Main Event, before heading to the commentary booth to help call the action.
In an interview on the eve of his official unveiling as a PokerStars Ambassador, Lappin, who is now 44, told PokerStars Blog exactly what it means to be recognised by the company at whose tournaments he has been competing for nearly two decades.
“It’s incredible, it means so much,” Lappin says. “After almost 20 years in the game, my passion for poker is as strong as it’s ever been. I love the players and I love the different reasons that people fall in love with this brilliant game.”
An emotional Lappin adds: “Honestly, it’s a huge honour to be part of the PokerStars team. I’ve obviously been playing on PokerStars for almost my entire poker career, and I’ve seen the kind of people who’ve been their ambassadors, and they are the absolute pinnacle of the game. So to be thought of as someone who could be in this team is just an incredible honour.”
Lappin listed the many friends he has made within the PokerStars set-up through the years, stating, “I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all the team who’ve showed this faith in me. I’m just full of gratitude.”
‘HE UNDERSTANDS WHAT MAKES POKERSTARS EVENTS SPECIAL’
In welcoming Lappin to PokerStars, Cédric Billot, Associate Director of Live Events Operations at PokerStars, says: “David has been a constant presence on the live circuit for many years. He understands what makes PokerStars events special because he has experienced them first-hand across multiple stops, and he brings a perspective that truly reflects the player community.”
He adds: “He combines deep roots in the live poker scene with a respected voice that players listen to and that balance of experience, authenticity, and his alignment with our values makes him a natural fit for representing PokerStars. We’re delighted to welcome him to the team.”
While thrilled at what the ambassadorship means for his own poker ambitions, Lappin immediately picked up some familiar campaigning themes, diverting the focus onto what he can do for the wider poker-playing community.
“My biggest hope is that I can be a voice for those players within the team to champion their need for good poker,” he says. “And by good poker, I mean safe poker. This is obviously very close to my heart at the moment, but this is a site that takes game integrity and player security issues really seriously. And it’s a company that doesn’t cut corners, a company that plays by the rules, which doesn’t look for workarounds with regard to all the regulatory frameworks. Integrity stuff is just really important to me personally. To work for a company where I know none of that will be an issue, that’s huge.”
David Lappin in action at the Irish Open last year
SQUEEZING INTO CONTENTION
The Live League ran throughout 2025, with all PokerStars Live players competing in three tiers: low, medium and high. In addition to cash prizes for the top-placed finishers, the ambassadorship was a further incentive open to the top 10 finishers in each of the leaderboards. It’s a format that worked for Lappin in particular.
“I’m just very grateful that the people at PokerStars read the list upside down, because I literally was the 30th name of 30,” he says. “I came 10th in the low leaderboard.”
Though he may have only just scraped into contention, Lappin excelled from this point forward. Qualifying players were invited to submit a substantial interview-style application, alongside a video component, detailing their appropriateness for the role, and what they could bring to the PokerStars brand.
While not necessarily expecting to be selected, particularly as he had other contractual entanglements elsewhere in the poker world, Lappin says he submitted an application as something of a speculative enquiry for something further down the road.
“All I did was really see it as an opportunity to put myself in the shop window,” he says.
But the stars aligned in spectacular fashion, with the PokerStars judging panel liking what they saw, just as Lappin’s other commitments came to a conclusion.
“I didn’t think that there was any chance I could get it, but I still filled [the application] out and my God, am I lucky that I did,” he says. “I never imagined not in my wildest dreams that six weeks later, I’d be here in Paris, about to be announced as PokerStars ambassador.”
CALLING IT AS HE SEES IT
Lappin has always been forthright in his opinions. A writer even before he discovered poker (he originally planned to be a screenwriter) Lappin started a personal poker blog in the early years of his career, and quickly developed a vocal social media presence. He subsequently earned professional writing gigs and has hosted the hugely successful Chip Race podcast, alongside his friend and fellow pro Dara O’Kearney, for 11 years.
In all of his output, Lappin calls it as he sees it, often becoming a bete noire to many of poker’s biggest names. He calls out hypocrisy and underhand dealings, rarely shying away from confrontation. Even while wearing the PokerStars patch, he says this side of his character will not change.
“I’ve given my sometimes too honest and too straight takes on what I feel about various sites and operators and behaviour of players and rule changes or whatever it happens to be,” he says. “And yeah, I probably didn’t pull too many punches down the years. But now I’m finding my myself with the perfect home, really, with a company that I know share my values for the way poker should be.
“The signing of someone like me, I don’t want to call it a risk, but it’s brave from them, too, because they know I’m going to be speaking for the players first. I’m a PokerStars ambassador, and that is an enormously important role. But within that role, I will always see myself as an advocate for players first. So I will always say what I think is in their best interests, and I hope because I do, I’m useful to Stars and I’m valuable to Stars.”
He adds: “I think first and foremost you have to be authentic to what you are good at. I think what’s obviously very quickly sussed out by any audience is that this person’s a faker.”
A NATURAL FIT
Lappin underlines that his association with PokerStars feels like a natural fit, recalling his progression as a player from the online tables, into the PokerStars regional tours, and then onto the biggest stage. He remembers playing 180-person sit n go tournaments online to build up a bankroll, attempting to get a foothold in the game.
“I actually went back through my old photos the other day, would you believe, and I found a screenshot from 2009 of me winning a $33 PokerStars turbo tournament for £3,921,” he says. “It was my biggest ever poker win at the time. I remember what that win did and how that made me feel and how it kind of spurred me on.”
Eventually, Lappin became a figurehead in the Irish poker world, building an informal poker team known as the Firm, alongside O’Kearney and others. The Firm offered coaching, staking and mentorship to up-and-coming poker players, helping a succession of young talents hone their game and take tentative steps into the live arena.
O’Kearney, a strategy-whiz and now bestselling author, shared secrets of his success in satellites in particular, while Lappin’s superlative networking skills helped ease the path for players as they climbed the ranks.
“PokerStars live tournaments have been the vast majority of my volume over the last 15 years,” Lappin says. “I know the players on the circuits, I play £150 games. £300 games. I like playing all the tournaments and I love the game and I love chatting to people.”
He continues: “I have so many fun memories of the old UKIPT. I cashed my first ever EPT in Deauville. I know that there’s no better organiser of live poker events than PokerStars, and I’m very passionate about the kind of pathways that people can get into those tournaments.
Enjoying the Estrellas Poker Tour in 2023
CLIMBING THE RANKS
“What I hope will be a big part of what I can do in the next year is in the satellites. That, for me, is so crucial. Getting people qualified, talking to the qualifiers about what kind of poker they play normally. Whatever it happens to be, I just want to find out about those stories and what got them into poker in the first place, and what their ambitions are.”
He says he hopes to help players take a similar path as he did, and to find as much enjoyment from poker as he has in the past 20 years.
“For the vast majority of people who play poker, it’s an experience where they sit there at the table,” Lappin says. “They want to have a good time and they want to hopefully become part of a poker community. And I’ve seen that firsthand for 20 years, how when that camaraderie between players is built up, it benefits the tour. You say to yourself, ‘I don’t want to miss the next stop because I met all those bunch of guys and they’re good craic.’
“So if you can build up those ties between players or create spaces where they can build them themselves, then you know you build a community and if you build a community, you get loyalty. That’s what the UKIPT was for me 15 years ago. If not for the UKIPT, I wasn’t really into live poker. But I formed friendships. And then I didn’t want to miss any of it. And then I wanted to go play an EPT because that looked cool and I wanted to graduate to that tier. I want players to have the kind of experience they want and and make them feel part of the community.”
AN EXCITING, UNKNOWN FUTURE
Lappin now looks ahead to a year of great promise. His ambassadorship means he’ll be travelling to all of the EPT events, as well as most of the PokerStars Open tournaments, and is relishing the prospect of sitting down to play with a Red Spade on his chest.
He says he will still have the same conversations, still ask the same questions, and still attempt to learn what his many friends want from the game.
He says, “I will be looking to get the kernels of what gives them the excitement, what got them to this tournament, and I’ll be relaying it back to the PokerStars team now with the sense of duty and responsibility to encapsulate their experiences and make it something that the team understands.”
But this being poker, there’s a hefty dose of the unpredictable about it too.
“I suppose I don’t know what the future holds,” Lappin says. “It’s exciting for that reason. Actually, it’s exciting because I’m not exactly sure what it’ll be like. There’s a great unknown in this, and that’s exciting.”
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