In an exclusive interview with CasinoApps, TV star and presenter Alex Gray speaks all things poker and opens up on her experience on The Traitors including secrets, tips and tricks.
All things Traitors
Q: What do you make of S3 so far? How do you think the gameplay has been different to the last couple of seasons?
Alex Gray: “I actually have a confession to make. I haven’t watched series three. I watched series two. I’ve not been able to bring myself to watch it yet, but also within the chaos of my life this year so far, I’ve not tuned in. I’ve seen snippets on social media. I know that there were all female Traitors at the beginning. Love that. I have a lot of time for that. But in terms of the decisions that have been made, the dynamics between the groups, I haven’t tuned in!”
Q: Who do you think makes a better Traitor, females or males?
Alex Gray: “Gender aside, I think to be a good Traitor, you have to be ruthless. You have to be so conscious and aware constantly throughout the whole filming process that this is a game. It is so easy to get wrapped up in all of the emotions. To be able to do that and to be able to disconnect from the emotion and stay so guarded and quite cold, I’d say, requires an element of sociopathy and stellar acting ability. I also think you have to keep the end game so prominent in your brain as well and think – I’ve only met these people for five minutes.
I really don’t know them from Adam. Who am I really doing this for? What is it in my life that all this is being acted out for? Whether it’s paying for your parents mortgage, whether it’s to get a house with your partner, whatever it is that your goal is – that has to stay at the forefront.
Now I have a psychology degree. So I have somewhat of an understanding of personality types and gender attributes. Typically, I’m going to play on the psychopath and sociopath theme because it’s quite fun. I’m not saying all traitors are sociopaths, just a disclaimer. However, typically males tend to be psychopaths, males tend to be the ones who commit the most crimes. Potentially because women naturally are just more sensitive, more empathetic. However, I don’t know if it’s necessarily a gender thing when it comes to playing this game because it’s not real life. It might feel like real life in the moment, but if you’re able to have that intellectual ability to disassociate from the immersive game experience, then I honestly think it’s 50-50 between genders. I don’t necessarily think either has a leg up. And if anything, potentially, a woman might have more of a leg up because a woman might be able to build more trust amongst a group. Especially a more elderly woman who could be like a mother figure. Look at Amanda, for example, she built that kind of mother dragon, motherly figure within the group. So it was almost as if you couldn’t second guess. Whereas a man, especially, if we look at Paul from series two, straight away he entered his villain era and the group clocked on.
So it’s connections as well, isn’t it? You’re right with the mother dragon thing. It’s like getting people under your wing, basically treating them like family. So they second guess any suspicions they have.
Yes. And also getting your allies. That is the most important part of this game is your allies. You want to build relationships with people so you know that they will not vote for you. And if you don’t get any votes, then you’re gonna stay in the game.
Especially if you’re a Traitor. And she did that, Amanda did that so well. So did Harry in series two. Harry’s ally was Molly. And everyone trusted Molly. So they would believe what Molly would say about him. In our series, Wilf. His ally was Hannah. People believed Hannah. And so getting that ally, getting that person who is your wingman, your right hand man or woman, that will help you glide through. But if you can’t do that, then you’re stepping on treacherous territory. And also, if you know who the traitors are, and you’re a faithful, say for example, you knew it was Wilf, it’s almost like you’d want to pretend to be friends with him, just so that he wouldn’t eliminate you. Or have a relationship, a dynamic with him knowing that you were his ally, so there would be no benefit for him with murdering used too early on. And the psychology of it is, it’s just a wormhole. It’s another level.”
Q: Is there anyone who you think could win it next week? Any names you want to maybe throw out there?
Alex Gray: “I really haven’t seen much honestly! I’ve been super busy the last 4 months renovating a house with Tom, and ironically despite working in the industry, I actually don’t watch much TV! I do hope a female traitor wins though, just to balance the books.“
Q: What is that like then? You spoke about the psychological part of it. What was it like in the aftermath, coming out of the show?
Alex Gray: “Coming out of it straight away, luckily I had Tom, so we were just nattering away for 48 hours after we both got out and just processed everything, talking through it all because we both had different experiences. However, after that had passed, it was just like, ‘oh yeah, we did this cool thing’. It wasn’t until it then got aired and obviously ,you know, they can only show so much, so only an hour of these super long days was broadcasted and so you’re watching it, and you think, ‘I don’t remember it like that, or that’s not quite how I remember that, oh my god, I didn’t know that they said that, or I didn’t know that that happened’. It’s almost like it revises history for you and your brain, so it makes it quite difficult to process after you’ve already processed something you then relive it but in a way that in no way shape or form can it be accurate to your experience and so mentally that’s quite hard.
It made me laugh because people on the internet or people who were talking to you or about it, they’d ask why we got so emotional because it’s just a game. Asking why everyone was getting so pent up and having breakdowns and crying? And no one will ever understand until you are in that truly immersive experience where you have no connection to the outside world. Your every waking and sleeping moment is consumed by this “game” and I say ‘game’ in inverted commas because at what point does the game no longer become a game and become your reality because you’re living, breathing, sleeping, eating it 24 hours a day for two, three weeks.
And I think people forget the build up to it as well. We were cast a long time before the filming started, so we’d been anticipating it for a really long time. And immediately in the first episode in our series, two people went like that. And if you think about that, you’ve gone through a huge casting process, months and months and months of waiting to find out whether you’re in it or not. And then you just see two cast members disappear within not even five minutes of the first ever episode. You’re like, ‘oh my god, did I just go through all of that to get here to then leave straight away?’ So you have the stress of that combined with the stress of psychology, who’s lying? Who’s telling the truth? Who’s going to backstab me? How am I going to play this the best way that I possibly can? Who can I trust? Who can I not trust? What gameplay can I do here? How can I ensure my survival to be the longest? So you don’t sleep. You’re tossing and turning the whole night. I think we all probably slept about four hours every night. So you’re sleep deprived too. So collectively, it’s a really hard phenomenon to get across to someone who’s never been there and experienced it. And of course, don’t forget, for our series, we were the guinea pigs, there was nothing to compare it to, there was nothing to watch and be like, ‘okay, so this is going to happen, I can prepare myself for this, I kind of know the lay of the land, I can implement this strategy if I’m going to be a traitor or implement this strategy if I’m going to be a faithful.’
We didn’t have any idea. I think we got shown a couple episodes of the Dutch or the Netherlands one. But I mean, it was a celebrity one and also, it was very different to ours. And it was all in Dutch! I can’t speak Dutch. There was a real authenticity about ours because we were authentic. We were just kind of making it up as we went along. And actually we are all still really close, I’d say like any of the bugbears and the dramas that happened within the show, we’ve kind of just forgotten about it. We’ve got this inseparable bond now. We still got the group chat going and it is actually really lovely. So despite all the shouting and the enemies within, that does fade away.”
Q: You were in there with your boyfriend, it was a big story in the world of Traitors. Do you think that’s something that potentially could rear its head in the next week? Like there’s some connections or there’s something that hasn’t been revealed that might be revealed?
Alex Gray: “I’d like to say yes, just simply because it’s really fun having that mystery of a secret ally. Because that’s really what it is. And that’s why people don’t like it if you have a relationship that’s hidden. Because it means that you have an ally on your team and it’s supposed to be like a solitary game, well it is a solitary game when you first start. So you have an advantage. However, I also want to say no because I feel like it just becomes a bit too predictable now, doesn’t it? It’s if every series there’s someone who has a secret connection. But then again, maybe there is one and it just, it just hasn’t come out or maybe it won’t come out until the very very end. Maybe one of them has got eliminated, you don’t know. Well exactly, there you go. Because when we did ours, we hid our relationship. I mean, it would never have come out of course, unless one of us said something, which is what happened, that red breakfast morning, but I mean, it’s just it’s one of those things where you’re so focused on finding out who the Traitor is rather than finding out who secret allies are that it’s what would you even know to ask like, ‘do you do you know someone else in here?’
And they just go, ‘no, do you?’ What more do you have to go on? Um, I’d like there to be a secret relationship because I think it’s fun. And I think it adds another layer to the already layer-full game.”
Q: Have you got any ideas of who would make a good Celebrity Traitor?
Alex Gray: “I’m a huge peep show fan. I love David Mitchell. He’s the one person I would actually fangirl over if I ever met. I would love to see him because I love the way he thinks. And I love his kind of dry wit and humor. And I would love to see him in a show like traitors, just to see how he plays it. And to see and to see him kind of kill it all with his humor. I think he would be brilliant. I would also love to see Claudia (Winkleman) play it. That’s a no brainer. Put her in the mix. And also Ricky Gervais. I think he’d make a great traitor. I don’t know who would win out of all those three. They all have their own strengths. It would be an even playing field.“
Q: Is there anything behind the scenes that the public would be interested in knowing? Anything that you can reveal.
Alex Gray: “What can I say? What can I say without being sniped right here and now? For revealing too much. I think what people would find interesting is how we go to sleep because obviously I think in the show, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s almost like a letter is put under a door, isn’t it? A bedroom door when they’ve written who the Traitors are going to murder. Pretty sure that’s the format. Whereas no one knows who’s murdered until the very next morning when we arrive back at the castle. You don’t know, so the whole night you can’t sleep. Because if that was a letter, brilliant, then at least I can get a good night’s sleep. Do you know what I mean? Like, I kind of wish they would have done that. Whereas the real method is it’s far more torturous. You are left not knowing until about eight or nine o’clock in the morning. So you imagine you leave the castle late at night and then you’ve got 10-12 hours of just like that feeling. So it’s actually a lot more brutal than I think what the public sees. But it kind of adds to the emotions, because that’s why everyone’s so happy when they’re walked into breakfast. They’re like, ‘I haven’t been taken to a room to be told that I’m going home. I’ve been taken to breakfast so I can enjoy another day.’
It’s funny because now I’ve gone through a reality show. I do still find myself watching TV shows, which are reality shows, thinking, ‘God, why are they all being so dramatic? Or why do they care so much?’ And then I’m like, ‘wake up! I was in one! I know what it’s like!’ As a viewer, you get sucked into that, ‘God, everyone’s so emotional, or everyone’s being so ridiculous.’ But actually there’s so much that happens and so much in the way that it’s formatted, which explains why people get so attached and they care and they’re emotional and they’re tired and this and that and there’s hysterics.
Also how fast humans adapt. It’s almost like a survival instinct, you adapt to your surroundings and I think that is like an evolutionary survival mechanism that we’ve developed.
Because if you think if you’re running away from persecution, or if you’re trying to evade famine, and you’re trying to find new land, you have to adapt in order to be able to survive. And I know this is a super first world version of that. But I think it would explain why you become so invested and you act as if it is your whole world. It’s fascinating. I would love, I don’t know if someone’s already done it, but I would love for psychologists to produce a study on it and I would love to be part of that study as in to be able to help. I think it would be amazing to actually pick apart and fully understand what exactly is going on. Because I think that’s why the show is so popular – because it’s so far removed from our day to day lives. I mean, from a very young age, we’ve all been taught, don’t lie, don’t backstab, be a good person. Whereas in this show, all rules go by the wayside.
Like it is: be a traitor, be a backstabber, be a liar, throw people under the bus, accuse people, like you don’t just go around accusing people in everyday life, do you? And if anything, most humans avoid conflict, and so all of a sudden, these humans that you’re watching on TV have been placed in this world where conflict is the name of the game.
And lying is the name of the game. So I think that’s why the general public are obsessed with it because you don’t see that in day-to-day life.“
Q: Can you give any tips to people that are wanting to apply for the next traitors? Like any kind of tips and tricks on how to make it through all those processes and become a Traitor?
Alex Gray: “First and foremost, be yourself. Don’t try and pretend to be someone you’re not because it will come out that you’re not that person throughout the interview process and you’ll just waste everyone’s time. Be yourself. Yourself is the best person. Because who knows, they might be looking for that personality type that you have and you just don’t know. Also, think of a really good story where you’ve had to lie in your life. Think of a really good story that will stop the producers and think, ‘oh my God, that’s brilliant.’ But don’t say anything in the application process that you wouldn’t want to be on national TV. So if you’ve committed insurance fraud, don’t say that! They’ll get you on, but you’ll also end up in prison after the show’s finished airing. Also, if you’re going to send in any photos or videos of yourself, film it in 4K. There’s no excuse these days to send in a blurry, shoddy picture. Get some good lighting, put on your makeup, put on your Sunday best, like make yourself look good. And that will stop producers as well when they’re looking through thousands of applications. They want characters. So if you’re a character, like if you’ve got a quirky sense of dress style, or you’ve got quirky hair or whatever it might be, embrace it, show that off. Maybe I’m wrong, I’m not a casting director, but this is just from what I would have assumed from working in television. This is what I just would have assumed. Because at the end of this, it is a visual thing. It’s not radio. Finally I guess I would say for me and Tom, our hook was that we were a secret couple. So that hook immediately would have made a good storyline. So they wanted to put that in this. They wanted us to be cast in the show. So maybe in your application, think of a hook. Like, my hook is that I’m actually an ex MI6 agent. And so I would be amazing in this and I’d keep it secret or whatever and only the public would know that. Or my hook is that my dad and I used to be secret detectives and we want to come into the show together. Just think about what your hook would be. Because it’s been thousands, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of applications are now coming in for this show, which is insane because I think when we did it, I don’t think there were many because no one knew what the show was.
So obviously, you’ve got to make yourself stand out. It’s like applying to a job, like you wouldn’t put, ‘oh I’ve got an A star in English at GCSE’, like no one cares, that’s not relevant, you want to make your CV for the show relevant.“
On Horse Racing & RaceDayTV
Q: How did you find working with RaceDayTV?
Alex Gray: “Well, I grew up with horses. So I always say that I’ve been horse riding since I was in the womb. My mum was pregnant and riding with me. So horses are in my DNA. I’d never actually worked. I’d never actually really done any work with animals before. I’d filmed one time at Arqana in Deauville, it’s an auctioneer. That was the only other time I’d worked with horses in terms of my career. And it was a thrill, like seeing these incredible athletes. These horses are athletes. They are unbelievably fit. They’re stunningly beautiful. And just being around them, you just feel what me as a horse person, I just feel energy. I feel magnetic. I just, I just magnetize towards them and just want to ogle at them. So I do care for the horses first and foremost. And I think horse racing still has a little bit of a way to come in terms of the horse’s welfare. And that is always, for me, the priority. I don’t care about the money, I don’t care about the accolade of a horse winning. It’s still too many horses are getting injured and die. Like the Grand National, I didn’t want to work at the Grand National for obvious reasons. It’s more the jumps racing, which I think still needs a bit of tweaking but overall I think the celebration of horses is wonderful.“
Q: Obviously your experience in the kind of presenting arena. Have you felt that the presenting club within horse racing is still a bit of an old boys club? I mean, from the outside looking in when you do turn on a horse racing TV and things like that, you don’t really see much representation of Britain, you see a very specific representation. Do you get that or are you seeing things changing?
Alex Gray: “I think things are changing. I think more and more people are realizing that most people are on their phones now. Not many people are really tuning into live TV these days. And, I know that Racing TV are doing some really good things on social media. They’ve got their orange mic, the roving orange mic that goes around, and they’ve got all sorts of characters who are presenting those and interviewing. And they’re focusing on the fashion. They’re focusing on like just the fun day out component element of it. They’re focusing on chatting with the jockeys and they’re doing it in a fun way. So it’s not fusty dusty and kind of old school. It is starting to modernise. And I think that’s a really good thing because it’s capturing a whole new audience, rather than like you say, just an old boys club.“
Q: What advice would you give to young girls and women wanting to get into horse racing or presenting in general?
Alex Gray: “Well, I mean, even when I started in 2017, I started presenting, the landscape is miles and miles apart, so how I started my career is so different to what you would have to do now.
And my advice for now, if I had to start again, I would say make as many videos of yourself as possible, film yourself being funny, do street interviews, showcase your talent of talking to the camera, showcase your talent of interviewing people, showcase people are funny people, if you can be quick witted and think off the cuff, people love to watch that.
And then if you want to get into horse racing and work with horse racing companies, follow all the accounts that you can. Like and engage with their stuff, reply to their stories. Maybe send in a DM or send in an email or find out who is working behind the scenes and reach out to them on LinkedIn. And then be like, ‘look, this is my profile. This is what I do. I bloody love this industry and this world. I would love if you could give me a chance of working together one day. I see what you do. I see what you did at Cheltenham and I think I could be really good at Newbury.’ And just showcase your interest, showcase your knowledge, showcase your talents and who knows the worst that can happen is that no one responds. Boohoo. If that’s the worst that’s going to happen, then what have you got to lose?
Nothing. I think just be brave and just go for it. There is a lot of competition now. Going back to the CV thing again, it’s like making your CV tailored to what you want to do.“
On Strange Interactions With Followers
Q: Hayley Turner once told us a fan who was in prison sent her a joint alongside some love letters. Have you ever had any similarly weird gifts?
Alex Gray: “Yeah. So to the point that it can be quite scary. I feel a bit reserved talking about it because I don’t want to aggravate these people.Even going into specifics, they’ll know who they are. I don’t know them personally, obviously not, but some of the messages I receive and I do get sent stuff. Which is nice, but then it’s always in the back of your mind like at what cost?
I had one man think that he was in a full on relationship with me and was sending me messages every day, multiple times, most days, and it actually got quite scary because then he started sending me really threatening messages. I never, I don’t think I ever, ever replied.
Maybe I think I might have replied at the very, very beginning, he might have sent me something like a really nice compliment. And I just replied thanks for the kind words or something along those lines. And then just left it there and never responded again. And then he took that and just believed that we had something and that and it was to the point I didn’t even want to block him because I didn’t want to aggravate him by blocking him.
But I mean luckily I think his accounts all got taken down because I can’t have been the only person and I did report him obviously and I think probably other people had done as well.
So that happened and also I’m just more aware than I ever have been. I mean, I’ve done it. It’s so easy to find out someone’s address or it’s so easy to find out where someone works or what someone, do you know what I mean? It’s really easy now. And I am very conscious of that more than ever. And I never used to be. You just hear so many, quite scary stories. Not to end it on too much of a serious note, the one that I do find quite funny is people’s obsession with my feet. I had a whole wiki feet page that has now been taken down, but I had a whole wiki feet page every single going back years and years ago to when I first even posted on social media. If there was even a slight image in a video, a slight flash of my foot, there’ll be a screenshot and it’ll be on the page. I had five star reviews. How about that? But I mean not even my feet are safe!”
On Poker
Q: Have you ever had any dreaded interviews in Poker? What’s been your worst one?
Alex Gray: “I always say if you can interview a poker player, you can interview anyone. I feel sorry for them. I really do. They’re in these rooms. They’re in these poker rooms for sometimes 12 hours plus. If you’ve ever been in a poker room, they’re dark and they’re stuffy and there’s loads of people around and it’s stressful and they’re so GTO coded in their brain, like they’re in the maths logic and thinking of cards and probabilities mode. They’re not in the, ‘I want to be charming and sociable and friendly and be the center of attention mode’. Well, some of them are. Some of them, that is their tactic, but they’re few and far between. And they’re often the big characters within the game, but a lot of them are just there and it’s become quite robotic, the world of poker, which is fair enough because people have figured out that that’s the best strategy. I mean, it’s constantly evolving, but in the moment, it’s the best strategy going forwards to win and just leave it to the, it’s like the long term mitigated risk.
Imagine in a three day poker event, you just got to day two. You got through day one, right? You just got through to day two. You’ve not quite reached the bubble yet. You’ve not cashed yet. And you just bust. After playing collectively, probably about 15 hours or 16 hours. The last thing you want to do is be interviewed. And they’re just there like, fuck off. Please, I really don’t want to. But don’t worry, everyone’s always been very polite. You know, normally they’ll just say, I really don’t want to be interviewed right now. But some of them feel pressured and so they agree to it. And it can be quite blunt, it can be kind of like drawing blood out of a stone. And I totally get it, don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticising them. I would probably be the same if I were in their shoes.“
Q: Are there any bad ones that come to mind? Like any specific ones you’ve been like, oh my god, that was a real difficult one.
Alex Gray: “Yeah. So when I first started, I was quite new to the game and I was in Berlin and I can’t remember the name of the player for the life of me. It was a long time ago. He was a notable player within the field and the photographer wanted to get a picture of him and the videographer wanted to do a quick interview. But we were all kind of behind the scenes. We were away in a different room. So we weren’t aware of what was actually going on. Little did we know that it was the bubble. I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t even think to look to see at what point they were in the game. We were just thinking of getting the content, go up to this player and he was just really short and curt and blunt, and I didn’t understand why, I was wondering why he was being so rude. Little did I know, it was the bloody bubble happening right in that moment, and it was between I don’t know how many players, and we’d just come in at the worst moment possible for him. And that has scarred me to this day, so whenever it comes to me interviewing a player now around the table, I’m like, ‘okay, at what point in the gameplay are they, they’re not in our hand, are they? Or if they’re low in chips, maybe that’s not a good idea.’ So it’s kind of, it was a learning curve for sure, but I remember being really hurt. But that was not a good, that was not a good moment.“
Q: Do you like Poker, do you play poker yourself? Are you a good poker player?
Alex Gray: “Yes, but I like turbos, and I like hypers, because I don’t have the patience. And I prefer playing online. I like playing online because I can move about. I’m a very fidgety person. I always have been since I was little. And so put me in a room where I have to sit on a table for 12 hours, that sounds like hell to me. Whereas if I can play at home and I’ve got my snacks, I’ve got my cat, I can move around the house, I can go to the toilet and take my laptop, which you know what I mean? It’s just a better experience. I can imagine you going to a poker and asking if you can bring your cat. There have been players who have done that, they’ve brought like stuffed animals in. Players do that a lot, bring their emotional support, kind of like good luck charm. But there is a player who brings fried chicken with him for every event. It got to the point that players have complained about it because they couldn’t stand the smell of the chicken.“
Q: Has there been any standout things you’ve seen at a poker event that made you think, oh my god I can’t believe I’ve seen that.
Alex Gray: “So much. Even just being really wholesome and stripping it back to the very basics of where we’ve traveled to, to play poker. I know it’s a bit of an awkward time to be saying this one. But, Sochi in Russia. I think that has been, it has to be my favorite poker tour. I mean, I’ve been to Cambodia, I’ve been to Morocco, been all the stops in Europe, been to Australia and more, but Sochi, they can’t always make you work for it as to get a Russian visa is a really long process. And once you’re there, Sochi’s in the mountains, it’s where the winter Olympics in 2014 was. And the Casino Sochi, is so stunning. It’s so stunningly beautiful. It just makes the gameplay so incredible. And then what’s amazing for players as well is they’ll play, they finish playing or they bust, and then they’re like ‘oh that’s a bit shit.’ You just go skiing in the mountains. You just get a little cable car up to the mountains. You just go skiing. Like, or you go and have a Russian banya. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a Russian banya before, but it’s euphoric.“
