Action Clock, Protection Poker Creator Trying to Change the Game

Everything changes over time, even a game as old and steadfast as poker.

The game may have been around in some form or another for centuries, but it has undergone constant change in that time. Even in the past 100 years or so, the evolution has been plain to see. The game has moved from draw and five-card stud played in shadowy back rooms of Texas bars to $10,000 world championship no-limit hold’em events televised by major networks with the accompanying glitz and glamour.

Although it may seem hard to fathom right now, it’s a pretty safe bet that in 100 years, poker will look drastically different than it looks today.

That idea is one to which Cavin Quintanilla certainly subscribes.

Image courtesy of iCrowdNewswire

Quintanilla is CEO of Gaming Advancement Marketing Entertainment, LLC (G.A.M.E.), and the future of poker is something he and his company are constantly trying to visualize and realize.

Though the company is in its infancy, GAME has already made some waves in the industry, introducing the Action Clock for this year’s first World Poker Tour Tournament of Champions. The Action Clock, a 30-second timer meant to speed up the game and make it more viewer friendly, debuted at the ToC to mostly positive reviews, proving easy to both operate by the dealers and work with by the players.

The Action Clock is but the first of what Quintanilla hopes is many innovations introduced by GAME, and he recently spoke with PokerNews about GAME’s past and future, uses and features of its products and how those products came to fruition.

Industry Beginnings

Quintanilla, who is now 44 years old, was born and raised in Los Angeles. Gambling was a part of his life from practically the very beginning.

“I’ve been going to Vegas since before I could gamble legally,” he said with a laugh, recounting spring break drives across the desert on I-15 with high school friends. “I’ve been going back ever since.”

Las Vegas felt like a second home to Quintanilla given all of the time he spent there. Casino games and poker had a natural pull for him, as he had always been drawn to video games and strategy games. By the time Quintanilla reached college, he had already hatched his first business plan: owning and operating a casino.

As Quintanilla didn’t have millions of dollars at his disposal, that wasn’t exactly an option. So, he got started working for a nonprofit organization, serving as a tournament director for the group as they held charity poker events. They qualified a number of players for World Series of Poker and WPT events. At the same time, they also raised money for the purpose of enriching the lives of kids, treating them to everything from museum trips to athletic events.

“We took these kids to things they normally wouldn’t get to do,” Quintanilla said. “These kids have never seen Staples Center; they’ve never seen Kobe play.”

That gig led eventually led to a job as a tournament host with Hawaiian Gardens, a table games casino located in the L.A. metro. There, Quintanilla got started on trying to improve the live poker experience. Seeing how popular the double-or-nothing Sit & Go format tournaments were online, Quintanilla convinced his bosses at Hawaiian Gardens to implement what they called “double-up sit-n-goes” — the nothing was omitted because “we wanted to take the negative connotation out.”

The Gardens built a marketing campaign around the special Sit & Go tournaments and watched them gain popularity. Quintanilla had a firsthand look at the evolution of the game, however small the sample.

The Action Clock

Ten years on in the casino industry and Quintanilla had made some connections. Using those connections, he formed what would become GAME in 2014 along with a group of …

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