question from total newbie

[podtobe]

I just started exploring online gaming as a potential way to make some money. From what I gather in a brief (few hours) perusal of forums like this one, the keys to successfully generating traffic to your portal is aggressive marketing and the creation of useful content for your potential players. What is your take on the opportunities to get into the online casino business by just buying a domain and trying to direct traffic directly to the casino. I'm probably not using the right lingo (exposing my obvious ignorance). As an example, I'm talking about the things such as www.purchaseacasino.com . It seems that buying one of these obviates the need to generate your own content and your only expense would be marketing. Obviously if you guys believed this was the way to go you would be doing it rather than what you are doing. Can you educate me as to why this is a bad idea?

I have a full time job working 80-110 hours per week depending on how busy we are. These sites advertise that if you spend the money (about 500 bucks usually) to get in, then you can put in minimal time (and additional marketing money) to promote the site and make commissions from the players you get to gamble with them. I have a feeling this must not work well in practice or all of you would be doing it. Your insights would be appreciated. I doubt this is going to be something that I can do given my very limited free time to devote to it.

[Pam712]

Hi - I believe what you are referring to are casino fronts - and some of the webmasters/webmistresses here do utilise these very successfully in addition to their casino portals - (we have it as a condition of membership though to the GPWA that members shall not just represent "fronts")

Beware if you are looking to invest money in a front-end site - some are very poor quality with poor software - players deserve quality sites with quality service. With so much competition in the gaming market you will find it difficult to attract loyal players if the casino is second-rate.

I know people who are making a good income marketing fronts - I also know people who don't make a dime One of the drawbacks of a front vs a regular portal is that if your earnings go negative - ie you have a big winner you arent going to be making any money. Its a case of putting all of your eggs in one basket.

If you want a free casino front try http://www.gamblingfederation.com - you can get set up without risking a dime. Your profits are paid weekly and its a good way to get a feel for the industry without risking your own money.

Good luck in whatever you choose to do

[Dominique]

Pam gave you a super answer.

I can't think of a thing to add.

[croupier]

I'd like to add that most of us wouldn't be taken in by these guys selling casino templates. You can get good templates for free, or if you just want somewhere to send players then simply buy a domain name and frame a casino in it.

[greedyhog]

If you are just starting, I wouldn't recommend a casino front. For no other reason than you have all of your eggs in one basket. You can refer 20 players in a month. 19 of them might make you, let's say, $2,000 but the 20th player might hit a royal flush and wipe out your earnings.

If you had a portal and sent 10 of those players to Casino 1 and 10 of those players (including the winner) to Casino 2, then although your Casino 2 earnings would be wiped out, you'd still receive a $1,000 payment from Casino 1.

Did that make sense? My example was oversimplifed, but the more casinos you promote the less risk you are taking on. If you already have a successful portal, then it's a lot easier to bear the risk of one of these front-ends and make it successful.

Hope that helped some. I agree with everyone else's advice as well.

Hog

[podtobe]

Thanks for the tips. I have a followup question for you guys.

How do your marketing efforts differ for a front vs. a portal. It seems that with a portal you would get visitors that are looking for information and "doorways" into the casinos. They would choose casinos somewhat based on the content and recommendations and bonus information your portal provides. In this way you can market many different casinos with one site.

Conversely if you just ran a "front" all the traffic you generated for your front would be directly into the casino.

Have you guys seen differences in the conversion and retention rates for these? I have nothing to base this on, but it seems to me that someone clicking on a link to a casino front would be more likely to go on in and gamble than someone clicking on a link to a site with informational content about several casinos.

I definitely see the advantage of having multiple casinos as your wins/losses are spread among several casinos, making it more likely that at least some of them will be positive at the end of the pay period. But unless you deal only with casinos that cancel out your negative balances every month, in the long run you have to make up for those losses anyway.


Also, in regards to the suggestion of setting up a free front to get a feel for the industry and seeing how it works: how would you start. It seems like you could get set up with minimal effort and investment and all your cash outlay would be just for advertising in an effort to drive traffic to your site. That seems theoretically easier than spending the time to develop content and getting your portal listed on search engines. I'm considering doing just this, focusing on offline advertising.