Would you sell your Offshore Portal if the money was right?

Related to a lively discussion about the changing US affiliate market and Bovada's upcoming departure from NY state: https://www.gpwa.org/forum/bovada-le...-a-257297.html

Would anyone sell their offshore portal to a legal operator, affiliate network or another affiliate if the money was right? More importantly, what makes a site worth selling?

Some classic offshore sports betting portals have recently (in past 1-2 years) traded hands.

Better Collective purchased both VegasInsider, Rotogrinders, and Scores and Odds:
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-r...dOdds-com.html
https://www.globenewswire.com/en/new...s-Network.html

Congrats to anyone here who was on the receiving end; a smart deal all things considered at present. Nabbing VI was a great and timely acquisition. It has had longstanding brand recognition, traffic, and top Google rankings for 15+ years.

Catena recently bought Lineups.com. It also operates TheLines.com, which I believe was redirected from another domain a few years back.
https://igamingbusiness.com/catena-m...m-acquisition/

There are others I know I'm missing.

Sadly my site isn't going to get those kind of offers. Does anyone think small affiliates have an opportunity to sell established sites with good backlinks, content and growth potential?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bpmee

Does anyone think small affiliates have an opportunity to sell established sites with good backlinks, content and growth potential?

---

Yes - but you're not going to be paid for "growth potential". Even if they love your site and can see potential - that's for the buyer to realise after making changes - and not something that the seller usually gets any monetary payment for.

Potential? Having a site with potential get you nothing until you realise that potential.

You'll be offered according varied hard metrics, including reader eyeballs, net profits, and owner hours needed to maintain.

The US offshore sports betting business is going to suffer a slow death or near-death unfortunately. Licensed firms and licensing jurisdictions will see to it that the unregulated operators, and at some stage probably their affiliates, are put under enough pressure to give up. Already traffic is down as players join regulated firms. Good Google spots are and certainly will be harder for affiliates of unregulated firms to achieve as regulated affiliates, also generally the bigger sites, take those positions through better seo profile and, more importantly, as google devalues the merit of sites that promote unlicensed operators. US law is likely to go after the offshore operators even more so than they have in the past, and they have already knocked plenty of operators out over the years without too much effort. These are multiple pincer movements that will leave very little space for affiliates and sportsbooks to operate in. I know Sherlock has stated it could operate as crypto-only books, but I still see these having strong pressure applied.

Anyone who has sold out, as in the OPs links, has done the right thing imho. It is sell out, swap to the rip-off legal market and earn peanuts unless you can sell your site further down the line or operate in an ever-shrinking market. Me, I am operating in that ever-shrinking market. I would think the value in my site is its truly excellent domain name. Though I am not knocking myself out to find a buyer, I'll literally just wait until I am completely forced out of the US market by the fact that the operators are shut or the earnings have dried up. It could take quite a while, or the DOJ etc might manage to close the big operators. Who knows, either way, it is not looking hopeful right now. Maybe there will be a place to promote crypto-only outlaws, but will google give such affiliates any traffic, however amazing their sites?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheGooner

You'll be offered according varied hard metrics, including reader eyeballs, net profits, and owner hours needed to maintain.

---

No disagreement there. My observation has been that few of the top ranking legal sites are "new". A couple were formerly dead domains and recent buyouts. But most were big offshore promoters with established forums, databases, SEO traffic, social followings etc.

It's generally easier buy an established site versus starting one from scratch.

If my own site had an army of content writers and triple its current advertising budget, it would be doing much better. That's what I mean by "growth potential". Buying sites that just need more "watering", read MONEY.

Quote:

---

Good Google spots are and certainly will be harder for affiliates of unregulated firms to achieve as regulated affiliates, also generally the bigger sites, take those positions through better seo profile and, more importantly, as google devalues the merit of sites that promote unlicensed operators.............Maybe there will be a place to promote crypto-only outlaws, but will google give such affiliates any traffic, however amazing their sites?

---

Recently, my site has held top 5-10 rankings for betting keywords until 3 days before a big event. At that point, the "news dump" begins and it drops back to top 20, getting almost no visits. There are 2 ways to remedy this:
1) Become an authority site. Good luck competing with corporate media. Organic rankings are still bought whether Google likes it or not.
2) Become a news site, tough gig for smaller operators and heavily saturated. Pray your articles make the carousel before the event begins.

CBS Sports recently had ~5 of the top 10 for Belmont Stakes betting keywords. Starting the week of the event, they rewrote the same article about 6 different times: "Belmont Stakes top picks and predictions for Win Place Show and Trifecta".

The content itself was pretty bland. It likely took the writer and editor about 90 minutes tops. They listed the odds (easy 10 minutes), a couple sentences about each horse (50 minutes for 10 horses) and had their analytics team research performance metrics (call the guys downstairs, copy+paste results 30 minutes).

Between CBS, Catena and a couple noteworthy horse racing authority sites, they owned Google when it mattered most. I'd argue the offshore affiliates are starting to get flushed whether on purpose or not.

A couple very big offshore affiliates, with sites much better than mine, were almost nowhere to be found. Really sad.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bpmee

No disagreement there. My observation has been that few of the top ranking legal sites are "new". A couple were formerly dead domains and recent buyouts. But most were big offshore promoters with established forums, databases, SEO traffic, social followings etc.

It's generally easier buy an established site versus starting one from scratch.

If my own site had an army of content writers and triple its current advertising budget, it would be doing much better. That's what I mean by "growth potential". Buying sites that just need more "watering", read MONEY.



Recently, my site has held top 5-10 rankings for sporting event betting keywords until 3 days before each respective event. At that point, the "news dump" begins and it drops back to top 20, getting almost no visits. There are 2 ways to remedy this:
1) Become an authority site. Good luck competing with corporate media. Organic rankings are still bought whether Google likes it or not.
2) Become a news site, tough gig for smaller operators and heavily saturated. Pray your articles make the carousel before the event begins.

CBS Sports recently had ~5 of the top 10 for Belmont Stakes betting keywords. Starting the week of the event, they rewrote the same article about 6 different times: "Belmont Stakes top picks and predictions for Win Place Show and Trifecta".

The content itself was pretty bland. It likely took the writer and editor about 90 minutes tops. They listed the odds (easy 10 minutes), a couple sentences about each horse (50 minutes for 10 horses) and had their analytics team research performance metrics (call the guys downstairs, copy+paste results 30 minutes).

Between CBS, Catena and a couple noteworthy horse racing authority sites, they owned Google when it mattered most. I'd argue the offshore affiliates are starting to get flushed whether on purpose or not.

A couple very big offshore affiliates, with sites much better than mine, were almost nowhere to be found. Really sad.

---

It's kind of logical that Google prefers to show her clients legal websites instead of illegal websites. Besides that, most "offshore" affiliates are not able to compete with corporate affiliates. They have less funds to invest, less people to work on the website, etc. That's a bit the way it is.

Try to be unique, try to offer information that's really useful for your visitors.

Hello!

Thanks for an interesting question.

I would say 'yes'. But you need to show the revenue stats and etc. As the profit is the most important thing in business.

Anyone selling any offshore poker sites?

I will buy ;)


I would not sell my main site unless I got 3+ years revenue. Even then... meh.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PROFRBcom

I would not sell my main site unless I got 3+ years revenue. Even then... meh.

---

:m:m:m

Yep - I've had a couple of approaches - and that's figure is where I'm at too - 3 x EBITDA

If someone bought the site and gave it a major SEO "zoosshhh" then they could probably double/triple readership and make "bank" ...
But I'm too old in the tooth, and just don't have the energy or know how to do it myself.

The site is fairly automated - but does require some work with new promos, banner updates, news updates, and invoicing / banking.
It takes me 1-2 hours a day to keep on top of it all - and I'm happy to put that in and take the monthly profits.

It's a part-time business with a full income stream ...
8-)

I have had some offers, however many want to pay just 12 months lol.. no thanks..

It depends on what the offers given will be. I'm open to the idea of selling only if it's really needed.

Yes, I would absolutely sell ALL of my websites, if the price was right.

But I don’t think anyone else would value them as much as I do. I have even held onto a casino name since 2001 which could be perceived as an actual local tribal casino. In the past I would have entertained an offer in the mid 5 figures range for that single domain. It never got much traction, but the opportunity still exists if it ranked for the right keywords.

But as I am retired, I would even consider an offer in that range - for all of my websites.