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! (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....

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! (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 :P"

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 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.

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! (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! (For the record, just to be clear -- I did not do this.)

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