Startups - Online Poker vs. Online Casino

[Jeremy]

There is a thread running here right now about starting an online casino. I would love to hear a discussion from people, especially those that have done one or both.

Personally I think it would be a lot easier to start an online casino, focus on branding, and get a core group of players to be profitable. The hard core casino players have exponentially higher player values, although bounce around a lot more. Poker players are much easier to get loyal to your brand.

So let's have a discussion about this. Would you rather start a new poker skin or online casino? This should be an interesting thread; It would be great to hear from some operators as well that have done both or have an insight into the operations side.

[Strider1973]

I think the main difference between starting a Poker or Casino site is, that with Casino you don't need a critical customer base to start the games rolling, as the player all play against the "bank". With poker, you need a high customer base, maybe 1,000 players being online at any time of the day, to be really successful and to offer your players enough games.

But I think you plan to either start a poker or a casino skin, so my point might not be relevant...

[Dlabs]

Strider, I don't think he's suggesting creating his own poker network, but sign up with one of the existing networks, so I don't think number of players online is an issue.

[CasinoKev]

I think opening a casino would be much easier and more profitable.

Casino players (and affiliates) are used to seeing new casinos show up. Most just want to know that 1) the games are fair and 2) the casino will pay and not disappear with their money.

The keys imo, are building a brand and choosing the right software.

Like Kaus brought up in the other thread, some players and affiliates refuse to play or promote certain software. So, that's one area where I wouldn't cut corners.

There is a lot more player value, so becoming profitable becomes less of a challenge with casinos (I would assume).

The poker community is much more fickle and loyal to certain brands.

I don't know how the cost compares, but if it's anywhere near the same I would always lean towards opening a casino.

[Graham]

I think a casino would be much easier too, since they are all pretty much very similar (other than maybe the live dealer casinos). It is more how you differentiate yourself from the competition via web design, promotions, etc.

Poker is quite over saturated and unless you are joining a really good network with lots of traffic, retention will become very hard when players can't even get in a game. Also, it is tough to compete against the big boys that spend millions on advertising. You have to be a lot more creative than just buying an ok domain, putting up an ok website and thinking that traffic is just gonna start flowing your way.

[pokerextras]

I've looked at both, and casino seems to be the better option. I could set up a poker site on everleaf for minimal investment, but getting and keeping players will always be a struggle. Look at the effort that victory poker are putting in and they're hardly raking it in.

Even if you're willing to make the substantial investment to set up a skin on a high traffic network, you'll be out of the american market for starters, and you'll have to comply with all of the network rules such as running a non rakeback site while competing with all of the rakeback options, and other stupid rules such as ipoker fines for having winning players.

With a casino, you can set up a good u.s friendly one, have higher value customers, and compete in a market where not everybody wants to play at the equivalant of stars or tilt, as player volume is an irrelevance.

I could start an everleaf skin tomorrow, seo it to rank for online poker, and wouldn't expect to automatically make that much due to low play volume and low player retention.

On the other hand, if i open a decent looking casino and rank it for online casino, i expect to become reasonably rich.

[superiorword]

Question- how much it roughly costs to start an online casino?


Also, how much it costs to start a new skin on Cake network?

[pokerextras]

Question- how much it roughly costs to start an online casino?


Also, how much it costs to start a new skin on Cake network?

START CASINO: START CASINO: Internet Betting Marketing and internet betting marketing companies

[ramchip]

Take a step back and have a good long think about this. It will not be as easy as you think. In many cases the ones who make money from white label deals are the companies selling the white label sites.

If you are going to succeed then you are going to need big money as the competition is fierce!

In regards to online poker start ups just look at the likes of Aced.

[Graham]

In regards to online poker start ups just look at the likes of Aced.

You get what you put into it. Aced did nothing other than sign some awful pro that lasted for a couple months. They wouldn't even invest in a good web design and after their initial attempt to enter the space it seemed like they gave up almost instantly.