GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 28 - April 2014

Thehits just keeponcoming Who says affiliateprograms aremoving away fromworkingwith affiliatewebmasters?Certainlynot anyof thefive interviewed for this issue. Sure, there’sbeen a sea changehere and there, but hard-workinggambling webmasters around theworld arediscovering thatmost programs are still hungry for theplayers these sites send theirway – including the sitesoperated inBulgaria,Hungary, Canada and theUSAby the folksyou’ll meet on the followingpages. They range in age from 29 to 43, list green chile enchiladas and chocolate cake among their favorite foods and include aKurtVonnegut fan and someonewhowants todebate artificial intelligencewithReneDescartes – typicalGPWAmembers in everyway! *Due tospaceconstraints, wecouldnot print the interviews in their entirety. Thecomplete textwill bepostedat gpwa.org. GPWAAFFILIATE INTERVIEWSERIES In this industry, unresponsiveaffiliatemanagers are thekissof death When did you launch your earliest sites? My first foray into affiliate sites was a portal called PokerOwnage.com (wow, what was I thinking with that domain name???). Like most affiliates I had a lot of my friends and family sign up under me at different rooms and that’s how most of my income came in for the first six months. It was like the WildWest in those days and such easy money. I had zero idea that thiswas actually theworst way to conduct business in thisniche! I later learned that this was a quick way to get busted for CPA fraud – some- thing that I hadn’t known about when I first became an affiliate – and I quickly changed up my marketing strategy. I signedup at places likeGPWA andParty Riches (Jeremy Enke’s first affiliate site, which turned into PAP and now PAL – PokerAffiliateListings.com) to learn the ropes and basic SEO and then everything kind of took flight from there. It’s been quite the learning experience, even after almost adecade in the industry. Howmany total siteshave you launched, which ones are you continuing to make over, andwhich ones are gone for good? I probably have well over 30 sites inmy portfolio, with most of them being in the iGaming space, finance and precious metals. I’ve financed a lot of my newer projects by selling some of my favorite projects, such as Gambling101.org and Gambling666.com. They were tough to let go but they’ve since led to bigger and better things, especially in my acquisi- tion of sites anddomains like 4Flush.com andPicks.org. I hope to turn sites like 4Flush and Picks into powerhouse portals someday. With my son being born just a fewmonths ago (myfirst kid!) I’ve found it reallydifficult as of late to jugglework and family so I’d like toget a real gameplangoing for these sitesso that I can turn them intohugesites by the endof 2014. How long did it take for you to start earning money, and which of your sites brings in the most revenue? I juggled working at JP Morgan and developing PokerOwnage.com for a few months before I started seeing some decent rev- enue from the site itself. Like I said ear- lier, most of the income early on was just family and friends helping me out by signing up at different poker sites and sportsbooks. As I began to learnmore about SEO and marketing in general I started seeingmy revenue rise, especially among my rev- share accounts at a lot of the poker sites I promoted. In this business you have to not only be really good at what you do to make decent money but you also have to get lucky here and there. I’ve had fortunate breaks in this business that have helpedme gain valuable play- ers –playerswhohave earnedme income for four, five and even six-plus years at certainprograms. The sites that earnme themostmoneyare sites I don’t even have listed at GPWA so I’llprobably justhave tokeep those tomy- self for the timebeing.Sorry! Iwill say that you shouldn’t underestimate the strength ofmini sites.NomatterhowmuchGoogle TJ AceHighPino GPWAAffiliate InterviewSeries