

Ask HN: How to monetize a play for fun poker site? - wagerlabs

I'm launching a poker site this week or next. It will be based on my OpenPoker server and a Flash client. There are plenty of real-money poker sites out there but mine will be the one and only "social network" where you can actually play poker.<p>I plan to make it as convenient as possible for friends to hang out together and play poker, the kind of game that goes on in pubs and college dorm rooms right now.<p>Does this sound like a good idea and if so how can I make money?<p>I'm thinking of charging $10/mo for subscriptions and perhaps a bit more for people wanting to run poker bots. I can also hook into MochiAds to run ads in the Flash client. Then there's customizing of your poker table, avatars, etc.<p>Any other suggestions?<p><pre><code>    Thanks, Joel</code></pre>
======
dazzawazza
Before I comment let me qualify this with the fact that I worked on one of the
big poker websites as lead engineer.

There is a big difference between free and raked poker. The betting patterns
in free poker are erratic and make the game MUCH less fun. Because no one buys
in to the hand (literally and figuratively) no one cares if they win or loose.
So there is always some idiot who just goes all in on every hand clicking the
'more free chips' button when it goes wrong. They ruin ALL the free tables on
all the poker sites.

To make games more fun you could consider:

private tables: people pay for the right to create private tables that they
invite friends/family to play on (eliminating the free play whores). Maybe
with a subscription you can create a private table for 10, without it's
limited to 6.

limited chips: people can only get new chips once a day (or what ever period
suits your traffic). You can get very clever with this allowing bad beat
loosers to get more chips buy reckless players get penalized.

I wish you luck but it's an industry flush with cash and corruption so you'll
need to be very canny. There are sections of the community (such as students)
who are looking for a good time on the cheap. They are also prime candidates
for beer advertisers so there is an angle there. You might want to consider
splitting your site in to students.domain.com and family.domain.com so you can
target the respective audiences more accurately.

~~~
wagerlabs
Great advice, thanks!

And Hacker News is THE site to read.

------
apsurd
I don't like the idea. There is god awfully too much competition. Nearly every
single for-money poker site is actually masked/marketed as a play for free
site. There is already poker apps on the major SNS like facebook (and probably
myspace).

You are outmarketed, outreached, and out muscled in almost every conceivable
way.

Also, as much as people DON'T admit it - people play poker to win money. If
you think your niche is those "friendly college games" well why in gods name
would your "college friends" play poker online when they can kick back some
beers, invite friends over and have a REAL game?

Lastly, if your angle is "social networking around poker" well thats called
"every other poker site out there". I can not see anyone who is legitimately
interested in poker, signing up for a social networking site about poker, that
does not let you play poker "seriously" (read for money). I just can not see
any possible legitimate angle to go forward with this.

Please someone show me the light.

~~~
wagerlabs
There's no light. When life throws you lemons you gotta make lemonade, right?
I have no other product at the moment and, questions of why I developed it in
the first place notwithstanding, I gotta do with what I have.

I'm not going to mask as a play for free site, I'm gonna be one. It's clear
that I have to be the best play for free site out there but it's not clear
what I have to be best at.

I'll put the site up, try to make the experience as good as possible and
experiment relentlessly. I have no other options.

~~~
sokoloff
I couldn't come up with a way to express a parallel with being the best darn
turd polisher out there without it sounding like a personal attack on you, not
a commentary on how you should be more aware of the seriously uphill battle
you face.

I honestly think that folding and moving onto a better hand/idea is the move
here. If you want to run the site as a learning exercise, you can probably use
ads or affiliate referrals to actual cash-game sites as a source of paying for
hosting, and there might be enough leftover for a WSOP super-satellite entry
fee.

I think trying to figure out what will make your "free poker social networking
site" take on a Facebook type trajectory as opposed to the 99 other
couldabeen-Facebooks is not a +EV play.

You should definitely look into twoplustwo.com's forums and business model,
but they've already got a pretty good lock on the poker-theory discussion and
a well-established community.

------
icey
This might be a good fit for the guys at Plura:
<http://www.pluraprocessing.com/>

Poker apps would be a _perfect_ situation since it takes much more time than
most games.

------
charlesju
Did you really write your whole server code in Erlang? Your intelligence
scares me a little bit.

First off, can you elaborate on what these "social network" features are?
There is a really popular poker FB application already, that seems to me to
have "social network" features.

I think that there are a number of questions you should answer before you
embark on this journey.

1\. Why will your poker program be unique?

2\. How will you achieve critical mass (what's your distribution
channel/marketing)?

3\. How will you stop your competitors from stealing your idea and
implementing them with their existing user base?

\------------------------------------

As for how I think you can make money? I think that you are a very intelligent
person, much more than me, and you should leverage that to your advantage.

Here are two ways I think you can make a lot more money than just simply
running a consumer product:

1\. There are plenty of people trying to solve the multiplayer problem (my
company for example) and we would love to buy some sort of license to custom
code written to handle generic server requests. Then you can package your
Poker software on top of that as a "demo". But if you go this route, you
really need to redo your server in a more traditional language, Erlang is fun
for show and tell, but not very practical for the masses.

2\. If you are adamant on doing a poker related site with your stuff. I would
recommend making a Ning for Poker Sites. There are so many poker sites out
there right now that it doesn't make sense to try and compete with all of
them. It does make sense to setup the backbone to run poker sites, take a cut
of the money processing, and then let everyone else figure out how to market
and distribute your stuff. There is currently no free poker software that is
easy to skin and market, you can be the first, you can undercut everyone and
be a millionaire by this time next year.

~~~
wagerlabs
> Did you really write your whole server code in Erlang?

Yes. I started with Lisp but realized I didn't know how to scale it. Then I
tried Erlang, thought it scales automatically and finally realized that it's
still a lot of work and careful analysis of your architecture.

I wrote another version of my poker server in Lisp in the past few weeks and
it's almost complete. I know how to scale it now but see no point in pursuing
it. I wrote it as a way of relieving my frustration with Erlang, a way of
moving forward, even by taking a step back.

> Your intelligence scares me a little bit.

Thanks! If was as smart as you think, I would have been rich by the age of 30
and I'm not.

> First off, can you elaborate on what these "social network" features are?

I don't know, actually, I haven't given it much thought. I did google for
poker social network and found that existing sites are forums without any
ability to play poker.

I see my site as a friendly place to play poker, one you can customize and
tailor to your needs and wants.

> 1\. Why will your poker program be unique?

Beats me. It's not unique at all. It didn't have a poker client for a couple
of years, I'm just finishing up tournaments and there's only Texas Hold'em at
the moment.

Once upon a time, a sportsbook and casino in the Caribbean commissioned poker
software. I was running an offshore development shop from my apartment at the
time (NYC and then Atlanta). I outsourced development to Russia. The
sportsbook fired their top management because their software could not handle
the load during football season.

The sportsbook then dropped custom developed software entirely and went with
off-the-shelf solutions. That's how I ended up with buggy PC-based poker
software written in Delphi. I'm still kicking myself not not forcing
development in C++. Devs said it would cost much more (Delphi specialists
them) and I capitulated.

I thought I could do better myself and wrote OpenPoker.

> 2\. How will you achieve critical mass (what's your distribution
> channel/marketing)?

Word of mouth and slow growth.

> 3\. How will you stop your competitors from stealing your idea and
> implementing them with their existing user base?

There aren't that many scalable poker servers to go around. Also, most of the
competitors are huge real money poker servers. I looked at gPokr but I think I
can do better.

> 1\. There are plenty of people trying to solve the multiplayer problem (my
> company for example)

I'm available for consulting.

> and we would love to buy some sort of license to custom code written to
> handle generic server requests.

What are generic server requests? Are they binary? JSON? UDP? TCP?

> Then you can package your Poker software on top of that as a "demo". But if
> you go this route, you really need to redo your server in a more traditional
> language, Erlang is fun for show and tell, but not very practical for the
> masses.

What is a more traditional language? Python? Java? C? C++?

> I would recommend making a Ning for Poker Sites. There are so many poker
> sites out there right now that it doesn't make sense to try and compete with
> all of them.

Great idea, thanks! Hosted white-label poker.

------
bhandras
Joel I think you should think about your idea a lot first. I follow you on
your blog and you happen to jump from project to project and your mind just
can't settle with one on the long run. How about planning the business first
with all the legal things (which everybody hates and leaves the last). After
that you may see if it will be a success or not. Read back your ideas and look
at why they change every day :) If you have one for more than 5 days than that
will be the winner!

But that's just my 2 cents.

~~~
wagerlabs
I have been thinking about this for a couple of months now, ever since I
commissioned the Flash client. It's obvious to me that I cannot plan this
business, there's just no way to predict the way the cookie crumbles.

I have another daughter coming up this month and a certain limited amount of
savings. I'm throwing my weight behind this project.

Do you have any specific legal concerns in mind? I'm not going to run a
gambling business and Wager Labs, SA has been in business since 2002.

~~~
MaysonL
Tournaments, bots, & book sales (perhaps via Amazon affiliation) seem to be
the best roads to driving traffic & monetization. Perhaps you could check out
legalities of small entry fee tournaments with book prizes? (Perhaps give
large discounts on entries for monthly subscribers?) Also - bot friendly
tournaments with entry fee for bots, with monthly subscriptions available.
Leaderboards!

------
Russelldb
Hi Joel, Don't want to sound like a stalker or sound too fulsome so don't get
the wrong idea but I follow you in twitter and read your posts on the erlang
list and find you inspirational.

My opinion on this is:-

1\. Forget the subs. Let people play for fun for free and if they want to bet
take a cut of the ante or pot or something (IE you only make money when people
spend money and even then only make a little). Make it very, very easy to bet
(Paypal, google checkout easy). But let people play for Kudos too.

2\. Also let people play on Facebook. Do Facebook Connect (or other social
networks) so peeps joining your site can bring all their friends (their whole
social graph). Make it so people can play away from your site basically
(iPhone etc)

3\. Bring in non-players IE have tutorials, novice tables, private game rooms
stuff like that. There is a huge untapped market of women who love to gamble
(witness the power of Bingo in the UK) if it is fun and social.

Personally I'd back you whatever as your drive and commitment are evident.
Whether you follow my advice or not I expect you to succeed with this or
another idea and if I had a few 10s of thousands of pounds I'd be in like
Flynn. Sorry if that embarrasses you.

~~~
wagerlabs
Russell,

I can't take a cut of the pot or ante as that will convert me into a gambling
site, of the type that are illegal in the US.

I'm all for letting people play for free but I would like to make at least
enough money to support the site and cover development cost.

I have an idea for a Mac/Win/iPhone client built with Unity [1] but I need to
launch something first and let people kick the tires. This is where the Flash
client comes in.

What about letting people replenish their balances, for a fee, e.g. pay $5,
get $1000 in play money?

[1] <http://unity3d.com>

~~~
Russelldb
>I can't take a cut of the pot or ante as that will convert me into a gambling
site, of the type that are illegal in the US.

Ah. I wasn't aware of the legal implications in the US.

>What about letting people replenish their balances, for a fee, e.g. pay $5,
get $1000 in play money?

That sounds good and quite normal too. Probably both ideas together will net
you most returns: Pay a monthly sub and get free transfer in of funds but if
you just want to play now and again then pay to transfer in playing money. And
still have play for free if no money involved? Or is there no point to that do
you think? Maybe an initial freebie?

~~~
wagerlabs
Initial freebie sounds good. $1000 to start or something like that.

------
ashleyw
I think you've got it spot on — ads for free members; and no ads, the option
to customize things, use extra features, and some extra virtual cash every
month for the "Pro" members.

Plus you could sell exta virtual currency, with Pro members getting a
discount.

Whats your URL? :)

~~~
wagerlabs
Thanks! I'll announce the URL as soon as the site is up and running. Watch
<http://twitter.com/wagerlabs> for announcements.

------
socksandsandals
Joel, this will be an attempt to prove out your OpenPoker infrastructure to
either a) sell licences to OpenPoker, or b) sell the rights to it outright,
correct? Given that, the site does not need to be super-popular in and of
itself. You will probably only need about 100,000 active players to prove how
much more efficient and scalable your software is. My thoughts on making money
are MochiAds and private tables; they seem about as good as any. But if the
goal is to sell OpenPoker, then you just need a proofpoint, not a successful
site in and of itself (in fact, a popular site would make it harder to sell
off the rights to OpenPoker altogether, as it would raise the cost to a
potential acquirer).

------
cjenkins
Hi Joel,

One thought I had might be to use some of your ad revenue as a prize pool each
week/month/etc. That way people could play with the potential to earn some
real money. Hopefully it snowballs so that you can offer bigger prize pools
attracting more traffic in a happy money making circle.

I think this could be a really nice niche to be in as you could end up as the
"default" free poker site to play at. Why play somewhere else when you could
potentially earn real money playing free poker?

~~~
wagerlabs
I doubt this would be legal. My assumption is that any payout at my poker site
would label its activities as gambling.

~~~
cjenkins
Hmm, from some brief research it does seem a bit of a gray area.

I guess the part that makes me think it would be OK would be the lack of
"consideration" involved in playing (You're not required to pay or buy
anything to play and there's no potential to lose money).

Just for reference:
<http://www.ago.state.co.us/FAQ/illegal_gambling_FAQ.cfm.html>

"For example, if the consideration component is eliminated and no fee, buy-in
or other money is required or solicited from the participants in a poker
tournament, then prizes may be awarded to the player(s) who perform well in
the tournament."

IANAL so take any of this with a salt mine worth of salt :)

------
Tichy
There is a lot of competition, but I haven't found a place where I could just
play poker for fun, no download or payment necessary. If you want to charge a
monthly fee, unfortunately your site won't qualify, either. Otherwise, your
position would not even be so bad, I think.

Wouldn't ads be sufficient? I think there is a lot of money in ads for Online
Poker. Of course that would be ads for other poker sites, so I am not sure if
it would be good for you to have them on your site.

~~~
wagerlabs
I feel your pain but don't know if ads will be sufficient. There's a huge
downturn in ads at the moment.

Plus, if I position myself as a family-friendly site then I definitely can't
show ads from other poker sites.

Perhaps there's good money in ads here but I definitely don't have a budget
for running this site without external funding.

~~~
Tichy
Maybe tagging a Poker site as family friendly is not the best approach? Even
if people don't play for money, it could still get them hooked on gambling.
There are plenty of other nice things to do for kids besides playing Poker.

Of course what would be cool is a trustworthy poker site. I just don't trust
the average poker server, and there is no way in hell I would download and
install their software to play.

~~~
wagerlabs
Family-friendly is not the right term indeed.

------
jasonwatkinspdx
I'm unaware of the legality, but there might be an opportunity to combine a
web of trust with online poker. Track play money bankrolls but provide some
feedback mechanisms players could use to settle outside the site. Pay for the
site via ads. Being purely ad supported would be a nice feather for your
software licensing business demonstrating hosting cost advantages.

------
mpc
How about digital goods/gifts? Similar to what facebook and other gaming sites
have done...virtual trophies, awards, etc. that users can display in a
'giftbox' within their profiles.

If your site has enough traffic and is socially 'interactive' you could
monetize the interactions with virtual gift micropayments instead of trying to
monetize the users themselves.

------
icey
Can I recommend labeling the bots? I think you'll have trust issues if people
think that there is some super-genius robot playing next to them. Poker
players know that it's not that huge a deal, but I think amateur players may
be turned off by that.

Either that, or have bot-friendly tables and human-only tables.

------
trevelyan
wagerlabs - you should look at dominategame.com

A subscription based Risk-style game with free play options. I've subscribed
in the past and considered it worth it.A serious and well-designed points
system can provide social standing and other sorts of incentives to help
compensate for the lack of betting.

