How To Start A Legal Poker Room

  
  • These are just the basic elements you need before you start bringing players into your online poker room. The real hurdle for most online gambling sites comes from being able to get enough people to register to your service an start playing poker online. The reason why this is so difficult is due to the popularity of the niche.
  • You’ll have two ways you can go – offshore (illegal) or onshore (legal). Let’s start with legal online poker rooms. Assuming you can even launch an online poker room in the United States (because each state is different, and may require a physical poker room/casino), it doesn’t mean it will be easy. There are lots of things to worry about.

This is a basic guide on how to start your own poker room. Many of the details change from state to state. This guide is being written mostly by what is required by the state of Montana for a poker game. Assuming that it is legal to play poker in your state these are the basics to get started. A location Employees Supplies Complying with laws/regulations Building & maintaining a player base. Full reporting software in real time to check your online casino and poker room statistics. Training for you or your staff on the use of the casino, poker and sports betting software. The license for the use of the casino software, poker software and sports betting software. The license to conduct online gambling activities in a legal jurisdiction.

Sports & Recreations → Casino-Gaming

  • Author Oleg Potemkin
  • Published June 21, 2007
  • Word count 1,073
Legal

Date: June 7, 2007

Dear Entrepreneur,

Did you know that online gambling business is currently one of the fastest growing business categories in the world? In fact, the gambling industry in the United States alone generates more annual revenues, than the Hollywood movie industry, music industry and video game industry sales combined! Americans spend over $54 billion on gambling annually. The popularity of online gaming is increasing rapidly and this year has seen significant growth in Europe and Asia. In China and Malaysia, there are twice as many online gamers as there are Internet shoppers. Around 43% of Chinese Internet users play games online, while just 16% report that they shop online.

How To Start A Legal Poker Room

Revenues in online gaming business rose from only $800 million to over $2 billion in 1999! By year 2006, it is estimated that online gambling industry will top over $14 billion in revenues! London-based Merrill Lynch analyst Andrew Burnett says online gambling could generate more than $150 billion in revenues by 2015. The potential of online gaming business is too big to ignore. Now is the perfect time to get onboard.

Until recently small entrepreneurs had no chance of getting into the gambling industry, because of huge capital investments, gaming license acquisitions and legal red tape. The internet eliminated all the obstacles. You can now own and promote your own online casino, sportsbook and multiplayer poker room gaming business and generate revenues you've only dreamt about.

There are 3 ways to start an online gaming business:

  1. Most Expensive - Design and implement all gaming software for an online casino, sportsbook and multiplayer poker room which could cost you millions of US Dollars. You will also need to obtain a gaming license to run your online gaming business, which requires approval from most governments. However, you will have full control of your gaming site, and full knowledge of the source code of your gaming software. In addition, no royalties are paid out to a gaming software development company.

  2. Average - Become a Licensee of an Online Gambling Software Provider. This is a far less expensive option and the client receives all the gambling software and sometimes even the equipment necessary. It is also the most popular option for both licensed land-based establishments as well as entrepreneurs. Costs range from $30,000 to $350,000. The average licensing fees are around $150,000 (this usually includes marketing costs). In most cases a royalty is paid to the gaming software provider as a percentage of the monthly 'take' or 'drop' (gross profit). Usually the gaming software provider has payment processing (merchant account providers) already set up for a fully turnkey operation.

  3. Most Affordable - Become a Sublicensee of an existing Licensee. This is the least expensive option to start an online gaming business. Costs range from $5,000 to $60,000. The sublicensee is responsible for all the marketing and receives a smaller percentage than a full licensee (2), because royalties paid to the licensee are much higher.

To legally operate online gaming businesses, online casino and poker room owners turn to sovereign governments in countries that permit gambling and duly issue licenses for gambling operations. The casinos and poker rooms are registered as offshore gambling operations and in turn, the respective countries gain significant licensing fees and tax-generated revenues.

How To Start A Legal Poker Room

Potential Profits

As an Internet casino and poker room franchisee you could generate millions of dollars within the first few years in business. Your online casino and multiplayer poker site can generate revenue for you 24-hours a day, 365 days a year.

Online Casino - A $1,200 per day win for the house could represent as few as 24 people playing in your own online casino!

Multiplayer Online Poker - The profits of the online poker industry is enormous! The amount gambled on poker websites around the world in year 2005 is estimated to be more than S60 billion! Around 1.5 million people play poker online regularly for real money and the number is growing by 100,000 a month. Poker websites make their money by collecting a 'rake' from each pot, usually 1%-3% of the cash in that pot.

No company can guarantee earnings that are dependent upon many factors. Marketing is the key to your business success. What is required is targeted traffic. Some online casinos and multiplayer poker rooms are doing well over $1 million per month in profits. As Internet use spreads across the globe, online gambling will continue to be one of most profitable business opportunities of the 21st century. Take your share of the Multibillion dollar online gaming industry today!

Once your casino, sportsbook or multiplayer poker room website has been designed it is then your responsibility as the online gaming business owner to market the product. However, our gaming software provider will provide you with a step-by-step, proven internet marketing plan to ensure your own online gaming business is profitable.

You will also have 24 hour access to the backend of your own online casino and multiplayer poker gaming site. With your user name and password, you can log into your casino/poker site and check the daily, monthly or yearly monetary stats as well as customer info. These stats are flexible and can be broken down into how much was wagered on a certain game, amount won or lost by a certain player, percentage at which the game has paid out...etc. The customers in your own online casino & poker database who sign up with your gaming site belong only to you and are not shared with anyone else.

You will also have your own personal tracking software. This very detailed software will list all the websites or referrers which people are using to find your own casino and poker website. You will know how many hits, unique visits, pages views your casino and poker site receives, who is your best referrer...etc. You will also know which keywords are being used to find your online casino and poker room in the search engines as well as the amount of traffic from different countries.

The general rule of thumb is, the more money you put toward marketing of your own online casino, sportsbook and multiplayer poker room online gaming business, the higher the revenues, the higher the net income. You can expect to keep between 75% and 90% of the gross monthly deposits.

Rules

Our gaming software provider will produce a detailed monthly accounting report which will include the breakdown of total deposits, withdrawals, operating expenses, and the total payable to the licensee. Then they will wire the proceeds of your online casino and poker room to the account which you specify.

Oleg Potemkin, marketing director

100% Turnkey Casino & Poker Sites

http://www.casinoseller.com Internet marketing expert since 1999

Article source: http://articlebiz.com

This is a basic guide on how to start your own poker room. Many of the details change from state to state. This guide is being written mostly by what is required by the state of Montana for a poker game.

Assuming that it is legal to play poker in your state these are the basics to get started.

A location

Employees

Supplies

Complying with laws/regulations

Building & maintaining a player base

The first thing that is required is that you find a suitable location for your new poker room. This will need to be an establishment that has or can acquire licensing for a live poker game. In searching for a location there are a few things you should consider. If you would like a location with a lot of traffic you are most likely going to have to pay a premium price for the location, on the other hand if you are not worried about how much traffic a location has then it is likely that you will get a location for your card room at a much lower price.

One of the easiest parts of starting a poker room is getting the supplies. The basic supplies you are going to need are a poker table, poker chips and playing cards. You should probably think about investing in some other equipment such as a television since many times being able to watch a sporting event can make or break a poker game at times. If you are wondering where to purchase these items many online stores provide everything you will need at some very reasonable prices.

After you’ve found your location and acquired the supplies you will need it’s time to find some help to run your poker game. You are most likely going to need at least one poker dealer. This is also a major part of your poker game since the quality of a dealer can severely impact the amount of money you make from the rake. Another quality of an experienced dealer is that they can sometimes effect your player base. If a dealer has been dealing in the area for a long period of time it’s likely that they have developed a relationship with other poker players in the area as well and by simply employing certain dealers can bring poker players into your game.

Another type of card room employee that is many times over looked is house players. Almost every successful poker room in the world employs house players of one type or another. The reason for house players is to be able to start a poker game as soon as you get a customer and also to keep your poker game going when it becomes short handed. Many card rooms simply offer to put them into the game for free and split any winnings they may have or pay them an hourly wage. When looking for a good house player the general rule is that you want them to play tight and not to break any poker players. Their overall purpose is not to win money but to help keep your game going.

Before you open your doors and start running out to get poker players to play in your new poker room you need to make sure that you are complying with all of the regulations. Make sure that you and the location have all of the licensing in order and that all of your employees have the licensing they require to work for you without breaking any laws.

Now that everything is in order you need to start getting poker players to play in your new card room. This can be the most difficult part. One of the easiest things you can do is tell every single person you know that you are operating a poker room and let them know where it is. It’s very important to get the word out because if you have family, friends & associates that enjoy playing poker it’s very likely that they are going to come play in your poker game if they know about it, if they don’t know then they will most likely go to wherever they went to play poker before. It’s not a bad idea to spend some money on other marketing as well such as the newspaper, radio and television advertising.

Rules

Once yous start building your clientele it’s important to keep them happy and playing in your poker game. This is the downfall of many card rooms. When the players are in your establishment you need to make sure that they are getting great service at whatever it is they need. If they are hungry you should buy them food, if they want a drink get them a drink, if they want to know what movies are playing call the movie theater and find out for them etc. They should also be waited on in a timely manner to ensure they are happy. When you are in a service industry such as the poker business it’s very important to make sure you provide a better service than the competition.

Another great way to keep your clientele and also help your business is to start a mailing list. Once you have created a good mailing list you will find that it will most likely become your #1 and most effective marketing tool. Even if you need to add incentives to get people to sign up for your mailing list to get it going it should be worth it in the long run. It’s also important not to abuse players contact information as this will most likely annoy them and could even result in them not playing in your poker room.

Overall the poker industry is very competitive and if you do not enjoy the game or other poker players it is probably not the business for you to get into. Although if you enjoy poker, poker players and competing it can be a very enjoyable and lucrative business if you are successful.