Owning a poker site

Hey BHW,

I've been tinkering with this for a bit, but I'm ready to launch an empire in poker by owning a poker site (and sportsbook casino).

I have partnered with a small poker network based in Argentina that has a lot of fishy players, and a rake structure that favors me. (The games are 3% uncapped rake, and most players are receiving 30% rakeback or bonuses.) I am the first partner they are working with outside of Argentina and they have offered me a very high commission. I work with a few poker sites already and am kind of known as an authority on small sites and good places to play, I have been playing online for about 11 years and play mid to high stakes online poker professionally.

I will be taking advantage of my partnership and high commissions by building marketing channels and finding subs that I can offer great deals to.

I'm kind of acting as the escrow for sub affiliates that want to send winning high rake players, since getting scammed in poker seems to happen often. This keeps my subs happy and under me, and for the most part I am well connected or have worked with people for a few years.

I will try to outsource as much of the marketing as possible while still learning how to do things efficiently or knowing what to incorporate. For instance I found someone on BHW with a FB group posting service which costs 200/mo for the full service package. He creates an account for you, joins groups in your niche, and then makes posts in those groups. The reviews seemed good enough, and 50-500 clicks could be estimated per account. I'm guessing these would be relevant and quality clicks... at 1500-15k clicks a month for $200, I think that I will see a large return. The quality is yet to be seen, conversions are unknown, but I'm willing to gamble on a few accounts and if it works? scale it up as quick as possible.

I plan on using the posting service to promote my poker related youtube videos, blogs, twitch streams, social feeds, facebook groups and money sites.

Using the Funnel is good, but owning the funnel is even better.

I am working on creating facebook pages and groups related to my niche / and offerings for the various markets. (With them being restricted to 18+) When created, I will enlist content writers for posts, buy some interaction from facebook accounts, and build links to the pages Twitter / youtube comments / forums / other things in my network. I'm a big fan of CCarter (mr moneyoverethics) and I believe that each part of my supporting structure should itself be supported, though never interweaving everything at once. If I can create facebook groups in my niche in the various markets, I will be able to sell different offers once my current poker site has run dry or if a different partnership comes along.

My younger brother has done more with SMM than I have, so I'm going to have him build out 100 twitter accounts to start in Poker / Sportsbetting using a few different approaches per region. The plan would be to have 100-10k accounts that have a decent number of local REAL accounts in their respective regions. I would mass follow -> buy followers -> buy interactions -> mass follow -> mass follow off of super targeted lists in my demographic per region, and of course anyone that mentions poker / sports / casino. (different target lists per region)

Examples being a hot girl that plays poker for every region. Something like "Buenos Aires Pokerz". "Sportico logico Brasil" etc etc etc

These twitter accounts would send traffic to my money site, other poker affiliate offers, my facebook groups, youtube videos + twitch streams and what not in the empire.

Instagram = same as twitter though I hear its really tough to scale.

I had a solid graphic designer, but he rose the price so I'll find a new guy off bhw. The average attention span these days means I need to incorporate things like Video and Images into my sell. and I think it will lead to my overall presence / trust factor.

Reddit is a solid stream for poker, going to get reddit dominator.

Plan on using xrumer for links to various parts of the empire, hopefully can find someone to run this for me.

I'm going to start a youtube series reviewing the different sites and notes about them. I'll have aff links to all of them or some kind of sale. building links to the videos and buying views / recommendations. Streaming poker games is pretty big on twitch right now, does anyone know of a service that will have a large amount of viewers tune in? I saw one youtube viewer service saying theyll offer twitch soon? not sure if anyone is doing it yet though.

Anyways, I'm hiring an assistant to help me manage a few portions of this as I have roles that are more important.

I plan on paying him $10/hr for 30 hours a week on days that I am not available to do actively do things related to this.

I could probably get a VA for cheaper, but the person is a local friend and will be able to come to my office as needed.

..... thoughts?

I'm up like 100k playing poker this year, and I'm ready to put some money into action outside of playing on the felt.

the very best of luck, looks like a solid plan

arsenal420 said:

I'm up like 100k playing poker this year, and I'm ready to put some money into action outside of playing on the felt.

Click to expand...

seen those swings protect your winnings and re invest in something less risky

I'm very happy with my poker game, I'm 11 years in and competing at the highest stakes when they run for my games. (omaha hi lo, now play, and some times holdem.) I stake a few players and such, but I don't think I'll ever BUILD anything if I don't invest. I want to build something, play as much as I can to keep money coming in... oddly enough playing is the sure bet for me.

I just think I can do better?? or would atleast like to give it a shot.

I also coach a few people and used to charge 150/hr, but I ended up coaching my own competition so I only coach friends now.

My Partnership with the site out of Argentina is going well! The site's traffic is fishy enough where I don't have to do much to get other professional players to play there! Which is all good, but am I really creating long term value for myself by showing winning players other peoples sites to play on????

Maybe.

Forget that noise! I've been working on a few big partnerships (w/ the crew out of Argentina) to offer games on my own platform! The guy from Argentina has a back up software package RENTerra (lol) and will basically loan it to me! so I only need to pay the cost of the server. Kind of an absurd savings!!! His current software package has him paying 5%+ to the software developer, and its a sizable difference in quality... but 5% adds up or atleast thats what I believe!

I'm considering hiring developers out Ukraine to develop / build additions to something available publicly for like $10k for source code.. miggsoft (changed to avoid linking)

Theres a few games that I would like to add a functionality that I view as important.

So a few things come up.

Moving Money ---> If we work in a major network format, as a cash based network. Theres times when well have to take a large amount inbetween markets and its less smooth. Luckily everyone involved has good faith in the Arsenal420 dollar and that trust helps keeps things chill!

Shared player pool ---> Players want to see a few tables running if they're going to open up your site.

The guys who I want to introduce as partners to each other kind of have different views on things... Like rake structure and stuff? So finding middle ground is important. If we are to work as one big network.

One thing we haven't explored... something similar to FULPOT poker. That appears to be a social casino game. but relies on secondary markets to facilitate things? This would allow me to integrate marchant accounts pretty smoothly. Could make things smooth for collecting deposits from the fishy players, which isn't always easy in a pure cash format.

decisions decisions.

Interesting thread, thanks for keeping it updated. Just out of curiosity, do you live in a country where poker is legal? If not, how are you keeping yourself separate from your venture?

I have a few throwaway cell phones and holding company will be in someone else's name. Some message apps are better than others for privacy, but I could improve there! I have a virtual phone installed on an unrelated server that I remote into for the message apps... I'm hoping by the messages being on that server somewhere else that data doesn't get pushed to the Cell Towers around me? def going to review security issues as much as possible.

I live somewhere friendly for the time being, but ya never know!