Karolina Pelc Book Launch: Her Play – Making Your Own Luck

Early Career Journey

Karolina, you started your career as a casino card dealer in Warsaw. What motivated you to take that path, and how did those early experiences shape your entrepreneurial spirit?

To be honest, becoming a casino dealer wasn't part of some carefully thought-out master plan. It was a fairly accidental choice.

My father worked in the casino industry and suggested it as a practical way to pay for university. His advice came with one very important condition. He wanted me to stay in that world just long enough to learn a profession, become financially independent and open opportunities abroad—but not long enough to become comfortable there. He was very conscious that casinos could become a place where ambition quietly disappears, and he never wanted that for me.

Looking back, I think that advice shaped me more than the profession itself. It taught me that every chapter in life can be useful, but very few should become permanent. We have far more permission to reinvent ourselves than we tend to believe.

Ironically, I also picked up skills that would become invaluable decades later. On the casino floor you learn to stay calm under pressure, read people quickly and become comfortable making decisions without perfect information. At the time, I thought I was simply learning to deal cards. I had no idea I was laying foundations for entrepreneurship.

Transition to Technology

After moving to London and working in high-pressure environments, you transitioned into the online gaming sector. Can you share how you navigated this transition and what key lessons you learned during your time at companies like William Hill?

One of the biggest misconceptions about careers is that they should follow a straight line. Mine certainly didn't.

When I joined LeoVegas, I started in marketing. But as the business grew, I found myself becoming increasingly fascinated by product, innovation and the commercial side of building technology. I realised I enjoyed creating products far more than promoting them.

That experience fundamentally changed how I think about careers. There is rarely one predefined path. We often behave as though our first job determines our identity, when in reality we can adjust our course whenever we discover where our curiosity naturally takes us.

Working across product, strategy and innovation, and later consulting for companies including William Hill, Bally's and Hard Rock Online, also taught me something equally important: innovation rarely comes from having better ideas. It comes from having the courage to question assumptions that everyone else has stopped questioning.

Founding BeyondPlay

You founded BeyondPlay in 2021, focusing on creating social, multiplayer experiences in online gaming. What inspired this vision, and what challenges did you face in building a startup in such a competitive environment?

People often assume startup ideas appear as flashes of inspiration. Mine was actually the result of observations I had been collecting for almost two decades without realising it.

The immediate trigger came while watching a younger colleague swipe through Tinder, which made me think about how every digital experience had become collaborative and social. But the deeper inspiration came from much further back—from my years working in land-based casinos and later on cruise ships.

Casinos were never just about games. They were about shared experiences. Friends celebrating together, strangers interacting around the same table, moments that became memories because they happened with other people.

Ironically, those everyday observations, made as a nineteen-year-old dealer in Warsaw and later while travelling the world on cruise ships, would eventually become the foundation of the company that completely transformed my life.

Building BeyondPlay, of course, was another story entirely. Every founder is trying to solve three impossible problems at once: building a product, attracting exceptional people before success exists, and convincing investors to believe in a future that only you can see.

Acquisition by FanDuel

The acquisition of BeyondPlay by FanDuel in 2024 was a landmark moment in your career. Can you walk us through the acquisition process and what it felt like to see your vision come to fruition?

I'm often quoted as saying I built BeyondPlay to sell it, and that's true—but perhaps not in the way people interpret it.

Having spent years in senior leadership roles and consulting, I had been involved in acquisitions and due diligence processes from the other side of the table. I had seen first-hand what creates friction, what buyers look for and how seemingly small operational decisions can significantly affect outcomes.

So from day one, we built the company with that discipline in mind. It meant more structure, more governance and, frankly, more cost than most startups our size would have considered necessary. At times it even felt like overengineering a very small business. But when the acquisition process began, those early decisions paid for themselves many times over.

Seeing one of our products deployed at scale by the number one gaming brand in the United States, supported by a marketing budget that put it across every major advertising channel, was undoubtedly a proud moment.

But I also think we do founders a disservice by only telling that part of the story.

Every transformational moment comes with an equal measure of gain and loss. You achieve scale, but you surrender control. You watch your product reach millions of users, but not always in the way you originally imagined. Eventually you see talented people leave, and you have to learn to let go yourself.

One of the reasons I wrote Her Play is because I believe those bittersweet moments deserve just as much attention as the headlines announcing success. The polished version of entrepreneurship is rarely the truthful one.

Where to find 'Her Play' Book:

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1918271194#

Various retailers: https://linktr.ee/herplayKP