How long have you been involved in the industry?

[Engineer]

Hi all,

I'm curious -- how long has everyone here been involved in the industry? How did you get started?

My story:

Sometime during the summer of 2004, I was surfing the net one day at work, looking for ways to make some extra money on the side.

I had been wanting to make money online for a while, but I was having a hard time figuring out specifically how to go about making this happen.

I thought about being an online day trader, but that didn't work out. I tried this with fake money, and I didn't make a fake profit... so I dropped the idea.

I found some interesting sites where you could "perform" on a webcam for money. Now, this would have been extremely profitable for me, because, well... *ahem* -- never mind. LOL! ;D (For the record, just to be clear -- I did not do this.)

Finally (that one day at work), I stumbled onto the concept of "affiliate programs." I thought it was an interesting idea, although at the time, I only knew about the Amazon.com affiliate program.

That night, I came up with an idea. I was going to build a website about my favorite bands -- a fan site, I suppose, and then I would link to the Amazon.com site and make a profit if anyone bought a CD through my link.

But before I got started on that project, I did more research on the affiliate concept, and I discovered that there were many more options out there besides Amazon. I somehow found CAP, and I spent weeks reading the forums, researching all the options, and getting excited over the amount of money some people claimed they were making. There was a "how much do you make each month" poll there that blew my mind. I remember thinking to myself, "these figures are per month??!"

Shortly after that, I dove in and got to work. I knew very little about being a webmaster -- I was a chemical engineer -- so I had a lot of learning to do. I taught myself HTML, CSS, PHP, how to use a database, how to upload files via FTP, how to take screenshots, edit images, and so on.

Three years later, after a lot of hard work, I left my job as an engineer last November to do this full-time.

So, that's my story.... ;D

I'd love to know how everyone else got started! How did you find out about affiliate marketing, online casinos, and such?

 

[aksana]

I've been in online gambling since March,2005. My friend told me you could earn good money in online gambling and it was enough for me. I started my biz. Now I'm proud to be a full-time webmaster

 

[sipka]

I found some interesting sites where you could "perform" on a webcam for money. Now, this would have been extremely profitable for me, because, well... *ahem* -- never mind. LOL! ;D (For the record, just to be clear -- I did not do this.)

Oh yes, my boyfriend does some computer installing and such services, and he has lots of these kind of requests like: " I don't need Office, just set up the webcam and tell me which ISP has the best abroad bandwidth "

LOL and these girls work 1 day a week and make fortunes... When we were in a sh*t situation I was thinking about it too lol (don't throw stones at me), just I always thought about: what if my future children will search the internet and find out a video about mommy doing nasty things

 

[sipka]

But to get back on topic:

In 2005 I read an article in an online magazine about poker and how profitable it is. After that somehow I found CAP and started the same as Engineer, I was reading that forum for weeks, and yes, I saw the same thread as you Engineer, the "how much money do you make per month" lol.

Back then I just graduated from the University of Economics and worked as an employee at a company, but I hated that job, I quit and made our own online marketing company with BF, so these web thingies weren't so strange for me.

I thought why not, let's start a website, so I started to build my poker site. I registered to poker rooms, tried to learn the game, and I enjoyed it very much.

But I'm an impatient person at the same time, and the results didn't came at once, so to be really honest I neglected to improve the site and I left it to sleep during 2006-2007 (I wish I didn't do it, I'm sure I would be in a better situation by now). During that sleeping time I got checks from the site, but we had a lot of work to do in the company too, and I was not too motivated to work on the poker site after the daily work. First because I don't know the game inside-out, second it was hard to write articles about the game you don't know and when you need to write in a foreign language and because the site didn't generate that much revenue ($100-150) I couldn't outsource the writing either.

This spring we got into a bad situation that was hard to come over financially, we are still working on to resolve that situation, but it made me think about alternative revenue sources, not just dealing with the sometimes stupid clients who always want lower prices for a work, in faster time.

I knew that improving the poker site would be another fail if I did it on my own (without outsourcing the copywriting that I had no founds to make it happen), so I needed to think another field. It was a no-brainer that I need to do something in the gambling field, and I read about how popular bingo is.

So I made a bingo website. The webmaster side was easy for me, because I do a lot of SEO, developments, programming, design in the company, and the game of bingo is not a too complex game to understand. I started to play and see what are the bingo communities about and I realized that I can marketing it out of the gambling community, because it is handled like "soft-gambling", or rather a community experience than gambling.

Fortunately results came quite quickly, the site started in June and in July I made $68!!! lol (don't laugh you $xx,xxx earners ) In August I earned $143, in September $187, in October $100 and £15, and now in November I'm at $200 and £155.

And at the moment I am in the situation that I work on the site almost all the time after the daily work in the company, beside the bingo I started to make-over my long-forgotten casino website, but I wish I could clone myself or extend the day to 48 hours. I don't know what to do, because the amounts I earn this time are not that much to hire people to do some of the works for me, and this money goes to solve our spring financial trouble at once.

What should I do to expand more? (Seeing that I don't have much financial founds, only my time, energy and expertise)

How do you guys did this step in your affiliate career? What was the point when you felt you need to step forward and build business not websites?

 

[Pokerkeep]

I opened The pokerkeep in early 2007.

Prior to that I was mod then admin at GoAllIn.com. Go-All-In was a very large poker forum boasting thousands of members. Unfortunately, between the UIGEA and the owner's poor people/management skills, the forum closed in late 2006. IN RETROSPECT, THIS WAS A BLESSING IN DISGUISE!

The Pokerkeep originally consisted of a handful of web pages and a forum. We were mainly focused on teaching "no limit Hold'em" strategy and put little/no effort into monetizing the site. My friend and associate was writing a poker strategy book at the time and we used the forum as a testing ground for his theories and writing style.

The book has since been published and has gone on to be one of the best selling poker books of 2007/2008. The book, How To Dominate $1 and $2 No Limit Hold'em by Sam O'Connor is available on The Pokerkeep.

It wasn't until January of this year that I became focused on building the website and turning it into a profitable enterprise. My first major decision was to close the forum (it demanded too much time to moderate) and concentate on adding quality content to the site. It was a very good decision! Since then, We have developed The Pokerkeep into a well established and profitable portal.

We recently opened No Bull Rakeback and are now working on our Mac poker site.

I credit GPWA and it's members with helping me achieve my current success. I would likely still be floundering around like a fish out of water without their guidance and support.

 

[Guard Dog]

Those are awesome stories! Here is mine and you will find it frighteningly similar to Engineers

Like Aksana, I started in March 2005. Like Engineer I started off trying to find a way to supplement my engineering career (I am an electrical engineer, though, who has gone more the software engineering route).

When I first started, I was looking for ways to make money online and read a couple ebooks about adwords, commission junction, and other stuff like that. I was impressed with the adwords screenshots where people were making tons of money. I quickly saw in those screenshots that they were making the most money off the ebooks they were selling to me ;D I built a site called Top5HomeBasedBusinesses.com (which is no longer live) and got all sorts of people asking me which, of the 5 options I recommended were best. And - of course how damn easy was it, really?

Well, I couldn't lie, so I didn't make any money that way I told them it takes a lot of work and money doesn't just fall from the sky.

Since I wasn't doing well with that, but was learning how to make web pages... I did more research. I stumbled across affiliate sites and casino sites. I believe Casino Blasters is what I came across (Golden Palace was really what I kept seeing) and how much money people claimed they made.

I came across the VERY SAME thread at CAP and thought... why can't I make $100k / month. I still think that, BTW

I created: progressive-watch.com and, in it's infancy was a fairly crappy looking site. Take a look at the wayback machine's records of Andy's first online gaming site:

progressive-watch.com

I toyed with it for several months... checked stats.. saw nothing.. got disappointed.. then, by sheer luck, I landed a whale at All Jackpots casino. So, I modified the site a little by setting up Mambo and here is what it become:

Progressive Slots Watch - Home

getting a little better... I began getting decent players after writing my own jackpot grabbing code to bring jackpots into my databse. I also realized at that point that adding this type of stuff to Mambo was very painful

But, in the end, that helped me launch several portals and understand the basics of php/MySQL.

I am still an engineer full-time and a webmaster part-time. Well.... that's a little understanded. I am still a full-time engineer and a full-time webmaster and my family somehow puts up with me! haha

Anyway - I'd love to hear more stories!!!! Great thread Engineer!

 

[Engineer]

I was not too motivated to work on the poker site after the daily work. First because I don't know the game inside-out, second it was hard to write articles about the game you don't know

That sounds familiar... My first site was a poker portal, too. I knew nothing about the game, but for some reason that's what I decided to make my first site about. After a few months, I hadn't made any money, so I built a new site that was about several gambling areas -- online casinos, poker, sportsbooks, and bingo. I figured I would take the "throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" approach. ;D

I started making money from casinos about 6 months later, and I launched a few more sites that dealt only with casinos (no poker, bingo, or sports). Those sites made money, so I decided to focus mainly on casinos from that point on. I still have my poker site (onlinepokercraze.com), but it just sits there now... doesn't make any money. The site with the casinos, sports, and bingo is actually choicegambling.com, but I have revamped the site several times in the last few years, and now it is only about casinos and casino games.

 

[bonustreak]

I found some interesting sites where you could "perform" on a webcam for money. Now, this would have been extremely profitable for me, because, well... *ahem* -- never mind. LOL! ;D (For the record, just to be clear -- I did not do this.)

With the currant situation you may have to resort to this....LOL

5yrs here and would not change a thing, I love this industry!!!

 

[Chris-AffiliateClub.com]

I have been in the industry 5 years shortly and I would change a few things

Even though its great meeting and dealing with new affiliates, it is also a nice feeling meeting affiliates at conventions year after year (some of the time not sober - you know who you are).

 

[SEOPants]

Hi all,

I found some interesting sites where you could "perform" on a webcam for money. Now, this would have been extremely profitable for me, because, well... *ahem* -- never mind. LOL! ;D (For the record, just to be clear -- I did not do this.)

I would like to call you, "Man with Third Leg"

 

[mojo]

Great thread and interesting to see eveyones beginnings! I am going to take the lazy way out and it explains it all here. Warning..it's not very exciting except to me!

Gambling Mojo GPWA Times Interview

I have now quit my job as of Aug 1 2008. Joe and I both work at home now and I am passionate about this. I just started training my son. He is doing good after only two weeks! Here is his site Wild Card Casinos Featuring the Top Online Casinos, Great Bonuses and Promotions.

I'll have to see if Joe will come around here. He's been in the biz much much longer!

 

[pdjoe]

Good thread you have going here!

I started looking into it in September or October of 1998. I was working a construction job and most of the work was out of town. I would take my computer with me and play around in the hotel room....it was better then going out to the bar with the boys every night and spending what you made that day lol. At first, I would just play games and and goof around, then one day I saw an ad for Riverbelle Casino and thought to myself....how cool is that? I have been a gambler forever. After looking into the riverbelle site, I stumbled on the affiliate program link. Needless to say, I jumped right on it. I had no idea waht I was doing but still tried. I opened a free webpage with AOL, a few white label G-Fed sites and bought some ads and managed to make a few pay checks. In December of 2002 I opened PayDay Joes, still not real good at it, I plugged away and got a little better every time I worked on it. The money started to come in steady so I decided to open a forum along with people I had met at the free games I used to run, including MS Mojo and 4 other great people. It's been a great thing for me ever sinse. You get to meet and get involved woth sooooo many great people and make money too !

Thanks Dog and the rest of you here for the fun!

Joe

 

[Guard Dog]

Good stories Mojo & Joe! These type of stories are what inspired me to begin my work in the field. I hope other 'soon to be' affiliates will read some of these stories and understand that with a little bit of work you can easily make some good cash in this industry.

 

[Nandakishore]

I started the affiliate business early 2006. But my first contact with the online gaming industry goes back to around, I think, 1999-2000. Since I have been a professional software tester, someone contracted me to test a gaming site he was developing. The result of my test analysis was so disastrous that he decided to stop his project. But now I got interested in the subject. A few months later I was contacted by an acquaintance of mine to find out a casino software provider for him because he wanted to start his own casino site. He wanted to invest around $150K. So I started reading a lot about online casinos, attended several exhibitions and conferences and ended up by telling my acquaintance that my investigations have shown that starting one's own casino site is a high risk project and needs much more than $150K. In the meantime I had heard about affiliate programs and started building the Online Casino Newsroom website, early 2006. After that I contacted around 20-30 affiliate programs simultaneously because I thought they will do some due diligence before accepting me as an affiliate which will take time. But what happened? I was an affiliate with all of them within 48 hours! I was, of course, not ready to start promoting 20-30 programs immediately. As a result, my e-mail account was full of polite reminders from my Affiliate Managers to hurry up and start earning money. That's how I entered this business.


Nandakishore
Online Casino Newsroom
Online Casino Newsroom - Deutsch
Facebook Group
Link exchange welcome. PM me.

 

[WCD Admin]

Nandakishore did you have a little kitty as an avatar at GPWA? If so I remember you as a very sweet person.

My story is old, I started in 1995/6 or so as a casino valet, and ended up purchasing the casino town names in Colorado (got'em all but one!). Blackhawkcolorado.com was my first site. I had to sell it and all of my other sites to help pay for medical bills. We re-purchased our network about one year ago today (still paying for it!). We now have about 300 domain names, over 150 of them with websites on them. That's the short version!

 

[GamTrak]

I got started in 2001 and incorporated my business several years ago. It seems that I was born to be in IT as I've always worked in a job that involved a pc working on the software, hardware and technical suport and this job allows me to keep those skills up-to-date.

I'm learing to use Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Flexbuilder so I'm on at totaltraining.com alot these days so that I can create a database driven site and make my life much easier. LOL

I've been updating/redesigning for over a year. Seems like everytime I have it the way I want something in the industry changes and I have to start over, plus the fact that I want to use CSS and it's tricky to learn after working with Frontpage for eons. hehe

I have a forum with nearly 9,000 users and it's a joy to interact with my members and it's like having an extended family where you get the good with the bad. ;D

To reward myself for working 12 hours a day I try to vacation every three months and go to as many igaming conferences as I can handle which is usually three a year.

Here is my GPWA Magazine Interview of how I got in the business.

 

[WagerX]

I guess I am the third Engineer to post. lol..

I graduated as a Mechanical Engineer at UF, worked for two years in Florida, and then decided to study medicine here in Costa Rica (Where I am now). It was a scary time for me because I moved to Costa Rica, did not know the language, had a new born son, and quit my stable job as an Engineer. At the time I felt I was putting it all on the line. lol..

After a year I noticed that I needed to make some extra income. I knew nothing about the online gaming industry, but I thought that the "live casino" games were the coolest thing on the planet. I didn't know too much about affiliate programs, but I did have faith that it's a great business.

Unfortunetely, I stumbled on a software company here that was willing to sell a noob (me) a license to use their software. God, at the time I thought I had it made. Aside from going to school during the day, and being on call I worked on developing the site and making the players happy ALL day long. I slept 2-3 hours per day at most for 8 months. By blind luck, the site started doing well, until the unnamed software company decided to take all of the profits. With no money coming back in, and my savings going out to players I had to close the site. I then turned it into a portal not knowing how they would perform.

By this time I was demoralized by the perceived failure of running the casino site. Actually, I didn't fail at running the site, I failed at choosing who to partner with. At the time I had a bunch of happy players who I always paid out of my own pocket, and served up excellent customer service. When I turned the site in to a portal I made the back the money I spent on the license within the following 3 months. It was a real blessing. (I hardly ever use that term ). I guess I got lucky in dealing with reputable affiliate programs after that.

So after finishing my medical studies and then the following internship I decided giving it a go full time just to see if it's something I enjoyed. Since I made that choice (2 years ago) I have not regretted it at all. The only thing I miss is being socially active.

That reminds me. I'm really glad I studied engineering. It came in handy when I met my girlfriend at a clinic. After chatting with her a while I asked her out. She gave me a hard look and told me that she doesn't date doctors. I laughed and said ".. that's great, I'm an engineer!". Just like Happy Gilmore. lol We've been seeing each other for about 8 months now. lol

That's my story.

 

[Engineer]

Good story, WagerX! Actually I've enjoyed reading all of the stories here (please don't feel left out if I haven't mentioned you personally). O0 ;D

 

[WagerX]

Engineer, thanks.
I also enjoyed reading the stories on how people got started with the funnest job in the world!

Cheers!

 

[Guard Dog]

I agree... these are some excellent stories both for pure enjoyment as well as a bit on the inspiring side. It truly is possible to make money online and we are all shining examples of that


good work everyone!