The 2026 PartyPoker Tour Manchester is less than one week away. Everyone who’s attended the PartyPoker Tour in 2025 or 2026 knows what an amazing live poker tour it is, and the expectations for the fourth leg of the season are high.
The players from (primarily) the UK should be very excited for what’s to go down at Manchester235 Casino. That, of course, includes the nine PartyPoker Tour Ambassadors. The team, which consists of a mix of professional players and certified poker icons, is doing a splendid job not only spreading the good word of the tour but also ensuring that all players at the various stops feel at home and as a part of the PartyPoker family. The poker.pro journalist Christoffer Karlén had a 45-minute chat with Ambassador Natalie Bromley, talking about how she got into poker, her careers in football and law, how she became a PartyPoker Tour Ambassador, and more. It was a good talk, and it only made the excitement for the upcoming stop even greater.
- Read more: Barny Boatman Joins the PartyPoker Tour Team of Ambassadors
- Read more: Niall “Firaldo” Farrell Joins the PartyPoker Tour Ambassador Family
Bromley and Burnley
It’s not a certainty that poker players would recognize Bromley as a PartyPoker Tour Ambassador first and foremost. Bromley joined the team prior to PartyPoker’s return to the live poker scene in 2025, but she’s been a familiar face to the UK’s (and, in some extent, the world’s) football scene for almost two decades. While poker is a big hobby for her, football has been a part of Bromley’s life long before she learned how and when to defend the Big Blind:
I’ve been a football fan my whole life. I got my first season ticket at Burnley FC when I was nine years old. My dad was a big Burnley football fan. He wanted boys but only got girls; I had no choice but to be introduced to football, haha. I’ve been following the sport my entire life, for as long as I can remember.
Burnley FC got promoted to the Premier League for the first time in 2009, after beating Sheffield United in the play-off final at Wembley. With the transition to the prestigious Premier League, Bromley saw an opportunity to get more involved in the UK football scene:
“There was a concern at the time that all of the football content for Burnley would be removed from local journalism and put behind paywalls, on account of STAR Sports and the juggernaut that is the Premier League. Fans were worried about losing the narrative of the club and losing access to all the reports.
Hence, a group called No Nay Never was founded. I joined shortly after it was founded as a full-time member. Back then, it was just a blog where we published written articles, and arranged watch’alongs and listen-alongs to the games. It was made by fans for fans, with the local community at heart, with the purpose of enabling the Burnley fans to always have access to news and information about the club. It soon developed into a podcast, way before podcasts were as big as they are now. We were definitely the first Burnley football podcast, and one of the earlier dedicated club fan podcasts in English football overall. The podcast has been going ever since.”
Bromley has been the host of the podcast ever since it started, and more than 600 episodes have been released thus far. Bromley’s passion for football and Burnley in particular is very evident, and her work with No Nay Never didn’t go unnoticed. Soon enough, it opened bigger doors for her. The broadcasting behemoth that is BBC World soon approached Bromley, and she got the opportunity to do commentary on one of the biggest stages of global football. Bromley is one of, compared to the opposite gender, very few female anchors for male football, a challenge that she has tackled with the utmost success.
No Offside in Poker
It was around the same time that No Nay Never started that Bromley was first introduced to the game of poker:
“Around the same time that No Nay Never launched, I also started playing poker. I was still in university finishing my law degree, and my ex-husband was looking for a hobby. He picked up poker after watching an episode of Late-Night Poker one night. After playing the game for a few months, he said to me, Natalie, you need to learn this game, you’ll absolutely love it, it’ll appeal to your mind, your desire to test yourself, and your competitive edge. We made a deal; he’d join me watching the Burnley games, and I’d learn how to play poker.”
Her former husband was not wrong, and Bromley instantly saw the unique charm that poker brings. For the following 15 years, they spent their leisure time watching the Burnley games and traveling the world playing live poker. Everyone who met Bromley can vouch for the friendly spirit that embodies her, and she had no issues creating new acquaintances in the world of poker. Thanks to her new connections in the poker industry and her background in football media, new opportunities soon presented themselves:
“Because I have always been a football broadcaster and worked in media doing football, I often got opportunities to work in poker media as well. I worked with the APAT team and know Des Duffy and Leigh Wiltshire very well, and I’ve been a regular on the APAT show. I also hosted The Orbit’s aftershow called The Orbit Extra for a while, where I interviewed some big names such as Daniel Negreanu, Rob Yong, and Kara Scott. I’ve been on several poker podcasts, such as The Lock-In and the Chip Race. I think that because I was already within the broadcasting field of football, it made it quite easy for me to cross into poker as well.”
In the middle of everything, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, shaking the entire world. Just like everyone else, Bromley bided her time, discovering new hobbies and doing her various jobs as much as the restrictions would allow her to. When the first restrictions were repealed, the UK live poker scene was slowly revived:
“I remember when we came out of lockdown; we still couldn’t travel anywhere, but live poker resumed. Because we couldn’t travel anywhere, a lot of us used our entire holiday bankroll to travel the UK and play poker at all the tour stops. I played the Grosvenor Tour and various other games. By the end of that year, I started to realize that there was quite a culture at the poker circuit. We’d go to these events, eat at the casino because it was cheap, stay at the Travel Lodge next door because we got an offer…we spent all of our time at these casinos playing for significant sums of money. The local communities in the area never knew that we were there, though.”
A Fifth Queen in the Deck
Bromley felt there was an opportunity to give back to the community while playing live poker. Soon thereafter, she founded her foundation, the Hearts of Queens:
“I came up with the idea of creating a charitable foundation that gave back to the communities. I could have chosen any cause, but women’s rights, especially international women’s rights, have always been very close to my heart. Therefore, I decided that would be my focus. That’s how the Hearts of Queens was formed. The idea was that we would use our time at poker events to give something back to the community. The idea is to raise money, action, and awareness for women’s shelters and community centers in the communities where the poker events are held. For example, if we are in Manchester for the PartyPoker Tour, the Manchester women’s charities benefit. Hearts of Queens is now five years into its life, and it now covers three distinct areas.”
Initiative number one of Hearts of Queens is what they call their “Fresh Start Boxes”. The foundation sets up an Amazon wish list and then asks poker players to bring whatever items from that list that they can to a specific poker event. There, the Hearts of Queens crew will then put the items in the Fresh Start Boxes and bring them from the poker venue to the local communities’ women’s shelters.
Initiative number two is their Clean Water Campaign, Hearts of Queens’ long-term project across the globe. The goal is to put clean washing facilities in communities where there is no access to clean water. Those who want to contribute to this initiative can either donate to Hearts of Queens’ JustGiving page or give directly to WaterAid.
The third and final initiative of Hearts of Queens is their Christmas Appeal, their annual Christmas raffle in support of Refuge, which is the largest specialist domestic abuse organization in the UK, supporting thousands of survivors overcome physical, emotional, financial, and/or logistical impacts of abuse every day. Hearts of Queens aim to pay for as many shelters as possible over the Christmas period through their raffle, in which people can buy a £1 ticket and win loads of prizes.
Putting the “Party” in PartyPoker
When PartyPoker announced its return to the live poker scene early in 2025, Bromley was soon contacted by Raji Negus, the Content Manager for the PartyPoker Tour. Bromley was offered to become an Ambassador for the tour:
“A combination of everything – 16 years traveling the world playing poker, being a known football commentator and broadcaster, and being the founder/head of Hearts of Queens – was something PartyPoker valued, and they thought I’d be a good cultural fit for the team of Ambassadors that they were putting together. I’ve always been a big fan of how serious PartyPoker is; their anti-collusion stance, their priority to keep people safe and ensure they are gambling within their limits, and the knowledge that they’re playing on a fair playing field. Those are really important factors to me, so it felt like a good fit I would join the team. I’m really glad that I did.”
Bromley is currently one of 10 PartyPoker Tour Ambassadors, and she thinks very fondly of all her colleagues within the brand (Rebecca Hardisty, Joe Beevers, Barny Boatman, Niall “Firaldo” Farrell, Glenn Brown, Sam Acheampong, Barry Carter, Daniel Garcia, and Barbara Jimenez):
“It’s just a great bunch of good, down-to-earth people who love the game and are committed to making the game a fun experience and a safe environment for your average recreational player to play. We want to create a space where players feel safe, can enjoy a world-class poker experience, and can do so within a budget.”
In just a few days, Bromley will be reunited with her fellow ambassadors. The 2026 PartyPoker Tour Manchester will be played June 13-21 at Manchester235 Casino, and the schedule features 20 unique events. While the £500 Main Event is destined to be the star of the show, this poker.pro journalist and Bromley both agree that the £150 Mini Main Event is a tournament everyone should aim to play:
“I think the £150 Mini Main has got to be one of the best-value tournaments in Europe right now. To be able to play a tournament with such a good structure, the coverage, the prize pool, for just £150, it’s just amazing.”
When she says “The coverage,” Bromley refers to the fact that poker.pro always covers every knook and cranny of action from the Mini Main Event. What’s more, the nine-handed final table is typically live-streamed. In other words, this relatively cheap tournament gets the live coverage that is mostly seen with high-stakes poker tournaments. The Mini Main Event truly is a one-of-a-kind live poker tournament.
Manchester will be a special stop for Bromley, seeing as it’s her home leg of the PartyPoker Tour. There is also some redemption to claim: during last year’s stop in Cottonopolis, Bromley finished fifth out of 257 entries in the Main Event.
Lawyer by trade, podcaster, poker globetrotter, Head of Queens of Hearts… this poker.pro journalist is suspecting that Bromley has made a deal with the almighty father to increase her day to 48 hours. How she manages to juggle all her different projects and hobbies is both remarkable and admirable. Right now, Bromley is preparing mentally for the 2026 PartyPoker Tour Manchester, and, as always, it’ll be an absolute pleasure to have her at and around the tables.
