If you were going to monetize the Poker niche, how would you?

by xTrav Banned
9 replies
I realize that tons of blogs and poker related sites have pretty much tanked since Black Friday. So let's just pretend that Poker was back in it's prime and things were still booming in the Poker industry.

Under those circumstances, what are the best ways to monetize a Poker website?

And with all of these monetization methods, do you think that the Poker industry is a good one to get into? Does it sell? Or are most Poker players just broke degens who don't spend money?

Please list all of your Poker monetization ideas below:
#monetize #niche #poker
  • Profile picture of the author Joseph Robinson
    Banned
    Strategy guides would probably be the best way to go. Personally, it isn't a niche I would be very interested in entering.
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    • Profile picture of the author xTrav
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Joe Robinson View Post

      Strategy guides would probably be the best way to go. Personally, it isn't a niche I would be very interested in entering.
      That's why Im asking.

      I absolutely love to play poker but still trying to decide if it can be a profitable hobby as well. Maybe not?
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      • Profile picture of the author Joseph Robinson
        Banned
        Originally Posted by xTrav View Post

        That's why Im asking.

        I absolutely love to play poker but still trying to decide if it can be a profitable hobby as well. Maybe not?
        Performing some proper niche research will answer that question for you. A marketing forum isn't going to know, or do the leg work for you.
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        • Profile picture of the author kenzik
          As someone who invested a considerably amount of time into poker (5 years?) let me share a few things:

          The poker community requires seller credibility for them to purchase virtually anything. If you aren't a known community member of the more popular forums, no one is going to buy your e-book unless it has exceptional value. The problem is, that exception value is hard to come by and usually comes with a hefty price tag (there are many programs that cost $500+). The only people who will pay for those products are people who are a) already winning in poker, b) personally know the person selling the program or again, they have a great results record + credibility.

          Credibility consists of a lot of great strategy posts in the forums as well as usually a demonstrated record of success ("let me see your graph"). Additionally credibility comes in the form of videos of you playing (and succeeding). A lot of the guys who make books started out by coaching a few students. They might be playing 100NL, and coach some 5NL or 10NL students. Once they had success coaching, they'd take their methods and put them into a book (Verneer comes to mind).

          That being said, another way to make money is selling rakeback programs. There is a ton of competition for this and so it might be tough to enter, but it doesn't require as much credibility, it just requires a good deal. Because of the competition though, you'll usually have to offer something more because the poker room limit how much rakeback they'll give, so nearly every program has the same rakeback.

          Finally, if I were thinking about the #1 opportunity right now in poker, it is the fact that US players have a very difficult time playing online since Black Friday. There are some networks that are still active (Merge comes to mind). US players want to play online. If you can creatively make that happen, you could have a winner. WPT has a program where you pay monthly "a membership fee" and then you can enter tournaments where you win prizes. I'm not sure how they circumvented the legal stuff, but they made it work.

          There may be other ways!

          Good luck and feel free to hit me up with more specific questions.
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        • Profile picture of the author kenzik
          Originally Posted by Joe Robinson View Post

          Performing some proper niche research will answer that question for you. A marketing forum isn't going to know, or do the leg work for you.
          Interesting that I find you here again. You trolled my earlier post with your assumptions. It turns out you are wrong again in your assumption. Someone in this forum does know a bit about the poker niche and is certainly willing to share his knowledge.
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          • Profile picture of the author Joseph Robinson
            Banned
            Originally Posted by kenzik View Post

            Interesting that I find you here again. You trolled my earlier post with your assumptions. It turns out you are wrong again in your assumption. Someone in this forum does know a bit about the poker niche and is certainly willing to share his knowledge.
            Your assumptions about my "assumptions" are making you look a bit foolish and unqualified to talk about assuming things, wouldn't you assume? :rolleyes:

            Never said it would be impossible; but if this is where he is looking for the answer, it isn't very smart. Your experience quite literally means little to nothing to him in the grand scheme of things. You're not the poker market, you just worked in it. He needs to see what they want, right now and work on delivering that, right now.

            By the way, the previous post is not "trolling" because it gave you a dose of reality you didn't want to hear. Following me into another thread to comment about it though? Now that's trolling. Get a life my dude.
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            • Profile picture of the author kenzik
              Originally Posted by Joe Robinson View Post

              Your assumptions about my "assumptions" are making you look a bit foolish and unqualified to talk about assuming things, wouldn't you assume?
              Perhaps, but this all starts from another thread where you made some interesting (unqualified) assumptions about my mindset.

              [quote]
              Never said it would be impossible;
              [QUOTE]
              True. You said, and I quote "A marketing forum isn't going to know".

              but if this is where he is looking for the answer, it isn't very smart.
              Agree that he could do better, but certainly harmless for him to take a shot to see if anyone knows anything about the poker niche. If he is lucky enough to find someone who lived in that market (I was a frequent purchaser of the aforementioned strategy guides/videos/memberships), then he might find someone to have a good discussion with.

              Your experience quite literally means little to nothing to him in the grand scheme of things.
              Not sure why. I spent 5 years buying products, playing poker, and living in that community.

              You're not the poker market, you just worked in it.
              I never "worked" in it. I'm not sure where that came from. I played poker online (as a pretty serious hobby). I am his target market. I'm the guy who spent money trying to become a better player.

              He needs to see what they want, right now and work on delivering that, right now.
              I'm still that person. What I want right now is Black Friday to be reversed.

              By the way, the previous post is not "trolling" because it gave you a dose of reality you didn't want to hear.
              Sorry. I disagree. And I love hearing your thoughts, but that was the wrong thread to hear them.

              Following me into another thread to comment about it though? Now that's trolling. Get a life my dude.
              Sorry, I didn't follow you. The topic post was about poker, a passion of mine. I find it interesting that you think you are so interesting that people follow you into threads though.

              Bottom line, it seems like you have a habit of posting in threads and not delivering any actual value. If you sell products, I wonder if your products are similar.

              If I didn't know anything about poker and wanted to respond to the OP, instead of your curt and virtually useless post:

              Originally Posted by Joe Robinson View Post

              Performing some proper niche research will answer that question for you. A marketing forum isn't going to know, or do the leg work for you.
              I might have instead written something like this:

              Hey xTrav,

              While you might get lucky and find someone in here that plays poker, here are a few other ideas:

              1) Find out where the popular poker forums are and engage the community. See if you can an idea of what the burning pain across poker players?

              2) Are there opportunities for guides or software? What are other folks doing to make money? Where are their products defective?

              3) Visit the product forums themselves. For example, I did a quick search and saw that poker players use a product called Hold 'Em Manager. Go visit the forums for that product and see what people are complaining about. Could you create a product that does better?

              4) What about products that currently exist? Can you become an affiliate for them? Could you create an e-store that hosts multiple products? Could you become the Clickbank of Poker?

              I think a post like that is far more valuable than your one liner of "you're own your dude."

              That's my opinion though. Perhaps the OP found tremendous value in your post and I'm completely wrong.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Franklin
    Originally Posted by xTrav View Post

    And with all of these monetization methods, do you think that the Poker industry is a good one to get into? Does it sell? Or are most Poker players just broke degens who don't spend money?
    Hi xTrav!

    Despite the limbo of online poker, live poker is thriving like never before! I would suggest that you take the angle of promoting the live side of it...Many of the poker blogs/sites that have gone by the wayside ended up putting too much focus on the online side.

    Poker players are big time Internet surfers so if you can develop a good niche site revolves around LIVE poker, you should do very well!

    There's lots of angles you could approach...You could talk about the pros, or live tournaments, or poker events in the media (like the WSOP).

    You obviously know about twoplustwo.com as being the premier forum but if you spend some time on there, take a look at the most active threads and from those, you should be able to brainstorm some great site ideas for a poker site.

    Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author epandusa
    As a woman who used to play a lot of online poker (I haven't since Black Friday, but I still play live when I can), I would like to see a better market of products like shirts and stuff geared toward women. There is only one main site that sells shirts specifically for women, and while I support them and admire what they do...their designs SUCK. I wouldn't be caught dead in most of them!

    I may be way too narrow a niche audience but what I'm saying is maybe you can sell poker related clothing and products...what I see out there now just isn't cutting it. Just an idea!
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