The Odds Aggregation Platform of an ex adult affiliate marketer

[erinyes]

Hello GPWA!

Disclaimer: I've been watching this gambling/sports space for quite a while now. I've been in the adult affiliate business for little over 2 years and thanks to my previous social media xp I've managed to scale my income to around 500-1k$ daily. Unfortunately a lot of my promoting methods (98% blackhat boting) have taken a dip... so did my income.

Now I am looking to transition to a new market and build everything up from the ground using mostly white-hat methods.
So this is why my profile on this forum is brand new.

But I'm open to any questions.. and hopefully I will become a useful member of this forum.

So long story short.

I'm a Software Engineer with a huge passion for affiliate marketing, SMM, CPA, boting and everything that can supplement my monthly income.

I couple months ago I started developing an Odds Aggregation platform.
My objective is to gather sports data from all (for now) European bookmakers. I won't go in detail, how I manage to get my data because perhaps this is my secret weapon in this space.

Some key features of my platform.

• So far, I have 40 bookmakers on my platform (looking to add way more)
• Supports every sport/region/league
• Depending on the bookmaker - every market is supported
• The data is being refreshed every 1 minute. (looking to get this down to 30s or so)
• Tracks every market selection for odds change

My dilemma:
Even tough, I've been in this position before (I was a complete newb when I started adult aff) I am not sure (this might sound carzy) how to properly use my odds aggregation platform to generate a relatively stable monthly income.

I know very little about the gambling space, I read all sorts of horror stories about affiliate networks not paying their partners or canceling rev shares. This kinda put me off. Development takes up most of my time so considering that I would have to deal with tens of different aff networks/managers and potentially have issues with them kinda puts me off.

So me launching a website for odds aggregation does not seem to be the best choice.

My idea:
What if I would create a WP plugin (or simply expose my API) and license my platform and only focus on development and new features.

I've seen some guys on this forum have a lot more aff experience than I have so maybe you can share your opinion.
I am also open to any question.

I am sorry if this forum/thread is not the right place to post such thing.
Also sorry for my spelling and for the long post.


I wish everybody a great weekend!
Thanks for having me.

[universal4]

Welcome to the GPWA and thanks for the background.

Having thoroughly read what you are wanting to accomplish, you have come to the correct place to get not only many suggestions but also a list of potential leads for folks who may want to use your service or product.

The consideration of licensing your API is an interesting one, as opposed to creating a wordpress plugin, but I wonder if you could do both. Obviously I would suggest your license rules do not allow anyone to use your code and resell it or create a competing service to resell using your hard work.

On the case of a plugin, I can almost guarantee you would have buyers for that, the total number possibly being determined by pricing structure as well as customization options, and whether it would be a perpetual license, or one that would need to be renewed.

As for learning more about the gambling space, again the GPWA is the best choice for resources and learning more about the industry, there are over 17 years of threads and discussions located here that will help.

As for consideration of starting your own site or portal utilizing the odd software you have in development, I say why not earn a bit extra along with the other aspects you discussed. In addition it will also allow you a testing ground at your disposal so you can see what site owners that are your customers face when implementing the software, allow you to test changes and be one of your own beta testers, and earn a bit on the side.

The short answer to "should you do it?" Yes

Rick
Universal4

[tufty]

I won't go in detail, how I manage to get my data because perhaps this is my secret weapon in this space.

All bookmakers will give access to their XML odds feed to affiliates that they know and trust. So the feeds are free and openly available. It is the implementation of the feeds and then mapping them into one coherent odds table for each event that is too hard for nearly all affiliates. That might be your 'secret weapon'.

[ddm]

@ OP you are talking abour reinventing the wheel.
fwiw there ain't no secret weapons in this game, all there is is JSON apis, XML feeds and headless browsers and proxies.
and like tufty said, 99% of bookies give access to us to all their data in realtime anyway.

anyone who might use your potential API is already using someone else's... and fwiw 99% of people here are not coders, so that is useless to 99% of people here ... any coder can do what you are doing.

As for a wp plugin: it's been done already to death. 90% of devs/chancers try to get their own affiliate links in the list a % of the time as "payback".

[Malikbhai]

Once you go black you never go back.

[Sherlock]

So you are couple of months developing something, which should depend on unreliable rev share, and now you are solving that? The rev share is in sht, but 6 months ago it was there as well.

1st do the homework and either accept it and go on or move to something else

One advice: if you want to be in affiliate world, you simply must live with all the affairs. You will not be paid automatically without hassles. Those times are over, period. I for example can outsource everything incl most of dev work - after a lot of effort of working on team - just I can not outsource 2 things: keeping the team together & the core affiliate business.

[erinyes]

Welcome to the GPWA and thanks for the background.

Thanks for having me. Hopefully I’ll also contribute with some helpful knowledge.

All bookmakers will give access to their XML odds feed to affiliates that they know and trust. So the feeds are free and openly available. It is the implementation of the feeds and then mapping them into one coherent odds table for each event that is too hard for nearly all affiliates. That might be your 'secret weapon'.

With this “secret weapon” thing I might have come across as an arrogant ***** which is really not the case ��..so really sorry for that.

Let me elaborate a bit on this:

I’m aware that some bookmakers would be willing to let you access their odds feeds but getting to that level where you can negotiate such partnership is not that easy especially when you are only starting out in this niche. I’ve read that many people on this forum tried to gain access and they were turned down.
So me being a nobody in this space I think I have 0 chance. I might be wrong though.

But suppose tomorrow all bookmakers would openly let anybody access their odds feeds. You still have some major problems. Bookmakers do not share a common standard. One bookie might expose their feeds through XML another might upload a daily offer on an FTP server and the better ones might expose their data through a REST API. Sure you can pay a freelancer to write a wrapper for every provider but you still need a solid infrastructure to support all this and have somebody who can constantly look after it and debug it.

Another huge problem is that none of the bookies use a common naming standard. One might call Manchester United as it as and the other one as Manchester UTD. This becomes a huge problem when you try to aggregate the data and it’s not the easiest job to solve it (to the best of my knowledge)

So getting back to my solution.
You don’t need to beg for every single bookie to allow you to use their feeds. You could pay monthly subscription for a WP plugin or (simply for my api) and essentially have everything up and working out of the box.

I think a WP plugin would make sense because a lot of people here are running their PBNs on WP.

• you could choose from a couple themes
• choose a specific sport/region or have it all
• use your own affiliate links in the plugin

@ OP you are talking abour reinventing the wheel.

I am really not trying to reinvent the wheel ��, I’m just trying to sell people the “autopilot feature”

Guys, I really don’t know this space as much as you do. I am just a developer trying to solve a problem and make some money.

I would love to hear what do you guys think about this.
I really appreciate every input.

Cheers.

[tufty]

Yes, you have a full understanding of the situation. I did employ a few different freelancers to get this done a few years ago, as I have no technical expertise at all. One of them did a fantastic job of nailing the key problems (all of which you have outlined) in a rather rugged way. He was getting there but he realised it was a way bigger job than he thought and gave up on me, despite my encouragement and offering more money.

As you say, the constant updating and checking the mapping of names and creating events means it is a full time job, however automated it is. Even the mighty oddschecker must map the names manually at some point in the process, because their mapping of names is abysmal. A few years ago they were really great. Now every ante post / futures market with lots of selections is cocked up with regard mapping of names - selections appearing more than once with different names according to how the bookmaker spelt them.

Anyway, I would not be so negative about your plans as other posters. There is a gap for a new oddschecker. However consider these negatives (some of which have already been mentoned):

- Affiliates don't want to share their clicks. I would rather chop an arm off than pay in hard-earnt clicks and referrals. Much prefer to pay a monthly fee for a service.
- Other people have offered this service, then they get bored and move on to another project and don't keep the momentum going. You'll find some old threads on this forum. This leaves affiliates stranded. So, yes, the determined affiliates have found other ways, including me. My method is very basic but at least I feel in control of it and not in someone else's hands.

You might be better off doing the whole damn thing yourself, employing staff, and competing head-on with oddschecker. It will be a 100% commitment but the rewards would be great and oddschecker is slightly resting on its laurels. It is still very good though and, importantly, making millions. It is just not as well run as used to be. Obviously it helps if google puts you top for every sports betting keyword that exists. I am not sure how they got so dominant on google. Obviously a manual positive intervention.

The UK sports betting affiliate market is a disaster though, all the bookies are crooks towards their affiliates, apart from Bet365 (and they dont want new affiliates). If you get to the stature of oddschecker then you can start negotiating your own deals, you'll have the power. Maybe find another target market? I think without their first-mover advantage, you have a mountain to climb, not in terms of software, but in terms of monetarizing it.

[erinyes]

Yes, you have a full understanding of the situation. I did employ a few different freelancers to get this done a few years ago, as I have no technical expertise at all. One of them did a fantastic job of nailing the key problems (all of which you have outlined) in a rather rugged way. He was getting there but he realised it was a way bigger job than he thought and gave up on me, despite my encouragement and offering more money.

As you say, the constant updating and checking the mapping of names and creating events means it is a full time job, however automated it is. Even the mighty oddschecker must map the names manually at some point in the process, because their mapping of names is abysmal. A few years ago they were really great. Now every ante post / futures market with lots of selections is cocked up with regard mapping of names - selections appearing more than once with different names according to how the bookmaker spelt them.


Anyway, I would not be so negative about your plans as other posters. There is a gap for a new oddschecker. However consider these negatives (some of which have already been mentoned):


- Affiliates don't want to share their clicks. I would rather chop an arm off than pay in hard-earnt clicks and referrals. Much prefer to pay a monthly fee for a service.
- Other people have offered this service, then they get bored and move on to another project and don't keep the momentum going. You'll find some old threads on this forum. This leaves affiliates stranded. So, yes, the determined affiliates have found other ways, including me. My method is very basic but at least I feel in control of it and not in someone else's hands.


You might be better off doing the whole damn thing yourself, employing staff, and competing head-on with oddschecker. It will be a 100% commitment but the rewards would be great and oddschecker is slightly resting on its laurels. It is still very good though and, importantly, making millions. It is just not as well run as used to be. Obviously it helps if google puts you top for every sports betting keyword that exists. I am not sure how they got so dominant on google. Obviously a manual positive intervention.


The UK sports betting affiliate market is a disaster though, all the bookies are crooks towards their affiliates, apart from Bet365 (and they dont want new affiliates). If you get to the stature of oddschecker then you can start negotiating your own deals, you'll have the power. Maybe find another target market? I think without their first-mover advantage, you have a mountain to climb, not in terms of software, but in terms of monetarizing it.

@tufty Thanks, I really appreciate your reply and the encouraging words.

You are absolutely right, it’s a big project and most likely requires full time attention to keep it up. That’s why I hesitate to start my own website.

I don’t want to enter the UK market. Even though I lived there for over 4 years (Liverpool and Manchester) I think competing with oddschecker and oddsportal would be a nightmare. But at the same time, I truly agree with you..there is a place for a better platform. I also share your opinion about monetization. Oddschecker is owned by Sky so I am sure they are banking good money. They have the name and also the traffic to negotiate better deals ..and also odds feeds.

But see .. the problem with these huge portals is that they are not optimized for specific regions. For example .. sports betting in eastern european countries is a huge thing. By sites like oddschecker / oddsportal have little chance there. (in my opinion)

Here is my reasoning:

• the portal is not translated into the local language (this can have a huge impact on conversion)
• visitors are presented with irrelevant offers. (Why should I see an offer from bet365 if I cannot access bet365 in my country and I cannot use it legally?)
• visitors often are not presented with the local well known brands
• if you are targeting a country outside the eurozone or the UK/US … if the bonus is shown in anything but the local currency it will have a negative impact on the conversion

So I think the better option for me would be to offer a plugin. I would not care about your winnings. You could make 10 dollars a month or 1 million you would still pay me a monthly fee. You could optimize your website for the specific country and still make a lot of money.

TBF I think I am going to do this as well. Thankfully I’m trilingual so I will have the opportunity to test this idea in two different eastern/central european countries. This does not entirely solve the monetising issue though…but hopefully I will figure it out.

Huge thanks for your input.

[JamieG1981]

Hi Erinyes, think you make some good points regarding the feeds. We developed our app by accessing individual feeds from the bookmakers, even though the feeds where free to access there is a substantial cost (time and money) getting them all installed and up to the required standard.

Most where easy enough to access, Bet365 wasn't as easy as they required a sort of application process before we could gain access. However we did have to sign agreements with every bookmaker, standard stuff like terms of use etc.

One thing you might not have encountered yet is apart from Bet365 we have had to spend considerably time and money updating the feeds, some have even changed their process completly which meant scrapping the old feeds and starting again.

Your correct about the names, bookmakers call different teams different names as this can apply to leagues and cup competitions too. We have the fix built into our backend but as has been pointed out its a manual fix that requires spoting the bug in the first place.

With regards to widget, there was a post where someone was developing something similar not so long ago. We talked to them about it quite a bit but I think it got a bit to time consuming.

However at the time there was quite a lot of interest in the product if I remember so good luck with it all.

[ddm]

just gonna leave this here for you guys..

https://www.gpwa.org/forum/odds-api-251056.html?highlight=odds-api

so there's your data.. feed it into a widget, and bob is your uncle.
it would be trivial to replace the data source in a plugin like this https://wordpress.org/plugins/odds-comparison-widget/ and you are "off to the races" as it were.

[erinyes]

Hi Erinyes, think you make some good points regarding the feeds. We developed our app by accessing individual feeds from the bookmakers, even though the feeds where free to access there is a substantial cost (time and money) getting them all installed and up to the required standard.

Most where easy enough to access, Bet365 wasn't as easy as they required a sort of application process before we could gain access. However we did have to sign agreements with every bookmaker, standard stuff like terms of use etc.

One thing you might not have encountered yet is apart from Bet365 we have had to spend considerably time and money updating the feeds, some have even changed their process completly which meant scrapping the old feeds and starting again.

Your correct about the names, bookmakers call different teams different names as this can apply to leagues and cup competitions too. We have the fix built into our backend but as has been pointed out its a manual fix that requires spoting the bug in the first place.

With regards to widget, there was a post where someone was developing something similar not so long ago. We talked to them about it quite a bit but I think it got a bit to time consuming.

However at the time there was quite a lot of interest in the product if I remember so good luck with it all.

@JamieG1981 Thanks a lot for the great info. I really appreciate it.
Also I had a look on your app it looks really polished. Great job.

I have not yet had the chance to download the app but I've noticed that you also offer (not really sure what's the correct term) a sort of direct betslip integration. Meaning I can compare the odds, choose a bookie and place the bet with one click without having to do this all over again on the bookies website. I think this is a really good feature which can regulary bring back users to the platform.

I've noticed that a lot of people do the opposite. (I'm gonna be honest - I was planning to do the same thing). They don't offer direct betslip integration..they rather put an affiliate link directing the user to a welcome offer. For regular betters this can be frustrating .. I guess.

Like you mentioned, having no standards just complicates everything. For my platform as well there is a backend panel where we manually pair and map each entity to our agreed standard value. If this turns out to be profitable, I will spend some time writing a ML component which will do the record linking for us. The manual matching that we currently do can be used later to train the ML.

Thanks a lot for the encouragement.

[erinyes]

just gonna leave this here for you guys..

Thanks for the link.

I did spend some time lookin at that API and here are my issues with it:

• they claim to have integration with most of the UK/EU bookies. Well I've checked the English Premier League and it seems like for those events they only have odds from 12 bookies. (some events 11 or even less).
  Proof: https (slash slash) asteboard.co/IYrTt4l.jpg
• they claim to support most sports/regions - really not the case
• they don't return historical data for a given market selection
• some other filtering features that would come in handy
• they don't offer direct betslip integration with the bookie

I'm really not trying to be a hater here. I respect their work/product and I believe they will have a killer api if they manage to address those things.

But I still firmly believe that there are other markets than the UK where a general tool like this will not work. In my country only there are 23 licensed bookmakers. This api (for the English Premier League) only supports 3 out of 23 and I'm sure this is the case in other countries as well.

[PROFRBcom]

I want something like this, but for poker. Tournaments and cash games.

Who wants to design and maintain it for me?

[mediamanoz]

It's refreshing to see a new gaming affiliate being upfront and transparent about their adult industry related background. My background includes media and sports programming sales. We started our media company in 2001, and dabbled in the adult space occasionally for about a decade. Circa 1997 our gaming / online gaming affiliate program campaigns peaked, and we scaled back. Now we do much more flat fee and upfront 12 month to 23 month online deals, publicity campaigns, project management and a number of other side and passion projects. One of the biggest challenges in the affiliate space is that of programs changing their terms and conditions, which is also related to predatory business practises. So, now we work across a dozen industry sectors with limited affiliate program involvement, but oddly, often brands / marketing heads approach us regarding a 12 to 36 month deal. Sports, streaming, pop culture and technology sectors are some of the ones we are enjoying the most success in. All the best with your endeavours, and my suggestion is that if you can get a number of brands to sign up for a 12 month to multi-year deal on flat fee terms, take it. You just have to ensure number crushing works for you - and them. Good gaming and happy hunting on the world wide web.
Greg
Media Man Group / Media Man Int

[ddm]

It's refreshing to see a new gaming affiliate being upfront and transparent about their adult industry related background.

seemed about as relevant as my 3 years working in an Indian restaurant tbh. It certainly Didn't add to the ill-thought out / researched ideas in the thread either. seemed like a bit of an "I am johnny-bigballs" effort to me, straight out of the gate.

[ddm]

Thanks for the link.

I did spend some time lookin at that API

yes yes, of course it's not perfect or comprehensive, but fact is we work in Leadgen - offering players the most comprehensive odds comparison is not essential to us getting conversions, or sending the bettor to a merchant to get relatively good odds. (as affiliates we generally care about CONVERSION first, then retention, revenue - and not whether the punter gets the best odds 1st time they join a sbook fwiw)

Also, there are numerous other suppliers you could just partner with to get all this data (or just scrape the final data at regular intervals from a 3rd party such as oddschecker..)

look at superaffiliates like oddsshark and sbd - they often only offer odds coverage from 5 bookies (the ones they want to send customers to - generally because of retention or the deals they give us - remember not all bookmakers are equal in our affiliate eyes..) - so your idea that you need to cover 100% of the market is not really the way it is in reality.

[tufty]

they often only offer odds coverage from 5 bookies (the ones they want to send customers to - generally because of retention or the deals they give us - remember not all bookmakers are equal in our affiliate eyes..) - so your idea that you need to cover 100% of the market is not really the way it is in reality.

This is so true. I am down to just six bookies in my UK odds tables, and five of those I don't trust. Two of them I really want to remove right now but four in a comparison table might look fairly rubbish.

If Erinyes is offering a service, then covering all firms would be good so affiliates can then pick and choose their own shortlist from his long list.

[goals]

But I still firmly believe that there are other markets than the UK where a general tool like this will not work. In my country only there are 23 licensed bookmakers. This api (for the English Premier League) only supports 3 out of 23 and I'm sure this is the case in other countries as well.

@erinyes I honestly believe that you are on to something here. Hell there are people making money with a fraction of what you have going on.

I am into a zillion projects at a time and off the top of my head, I could offer you a monthly contract for one of those tomorrow if your data is solid.

Care to discuss more? PM me and we can take it from there

[edmond.oddy]

Iv got an idea that you will like for sure �� pm me if interested.