INSIDE THE ONLINE GAMING INDUSTRY

Industry Growth

Current online revenue from gaming ranges from $3 billion to $5 billion. Online gaming is one of the fastest, if not the fastest growing industry in cyberspace. Further details can be obtained from other resources such as the Microgaming website.

Issues facing the Industry

1. Legal Issues - Countries around the world are trying to regulate the industry in order to get a piece of the tax revenues generated by this lucrative industry. Cyber-gambling poses numerous issues to governments pertaining relating to tax and money laundering.

Lawmakers cannot effectively stop Internet gambling despite attempts to do so. Like other forms of internet commerce, technology will provide a means to supply the demand for online gaming. Long term, internet gaming will definitely become legal. Short term will see many obstacles posed by various opponents. In the US many issues are being debated. Click here to see more detail on the state of the US gaming industry.

2. Payment Fraud - Online payment issues stemming largely from credit card fraud are causing banks in certain jurisdictions to ban transactions with online casinos. Along with PayPal's decision to not handle gaming transactions in 2002, this has affected the industry causing significant revenue declines from 2001 to 2002. New and alternative payment methods are either being developed or are in place however few match the ubiquity that credit cards currently offer.

Major Industry Players

As consolidation is proceeding, consistent with other industries, the strong players are getting stronger. The major players are the credit card companies, the software vendors and the governments that attempt to regulate the industry. Among software vendors there are no more than a dozen strong players. This causes problems as a conflict of interest may potentially arise since many of these firms also operate their own casinos that compete with their licensees.

For example, IGlobal Media, a respected software developer also operates a number of Casinos including PartyPoker.com and StarLuck Casino as well as a number of marketing sites that promote primarily their own licensees. This is blurring the lines between marketer, software developer and media makes it difficult for consumers to gather unbiased information.

How to really make money in online gaming

Unless you have a few million dollars of spare change to develop a new payment method technology to replace credit cards or create the newest cutting edge software technologies, your best bets to make money in online gaming are listed below. For full details on how to make money in the online gaming industry refer to LINK. You can also refer to the resources I've listed at the bottom of the page or contact us for a consultation.

1. Start a casino

Starting a casino can cost between a few thousand dollars up to a million dollars depending upon the specific configuration you require. Most companies entering the industry do not write their own software (this is strongly not recommended) but rather license it from a software developer. The software developer can sell a configuration customized to your own specific requirements.

Potential profit can vary ranging from a loss to millions. From the balance sheets that I've seen typical net margins are about 50% of gross revenue.

Refer to IGamebiz.com which provides consultation on setting up a casino.

2. Market a Casino through Affiliate Programs

Casino marketing is a relatively new industry. On the internet affiliate marketing programs are pay per performance programs that reward marketers for driving players to casinos. Typical affiliate marketers are web portals, individual webmasters and internet marketing specialists. However anybody can get into this game in a matter of minutes. Some of the top affiliate program providers are:

CasinoCoins
ReferBack

Refer to Affiliateaid.com which details the best affiliate programs available.
 

3. Become a Professional Gambler

Believe it or not there are people who gamble as a profession. These are people with very analytical minds. In my experience most professional gamblers tend to be poker players as they compete with other gamblers instead of competing against the house edge. Also note that it is very difficult to accomplish this.

My advice is to get into the business of selling advice to aspiring gamblers. Hundreds of gambling systems exist that tout guaranteed methods of making money from gambling. From my knowledge of gaming, there has never been a system that can overcome the house edge at a typical casino. However selling systems appears to be a better bet.

4. Professional Cheater, Hacker and Bonus Claimer

Some people actually earn a living through deceiving online casinos via computer hacking. There are cases of hackers changing the random number generator ensuring that all players win. Most commonly this activity involves stealing credit cards.

Others do this through ripping off casino via claiming startup bonuses offered as signup incentives. The problem with this is that casinos are implementing strict cashout policies that make this harder and harder to do. This also leads to increased restrictions on cashouts for legitimate players. A few countries are known as havens for this type of activity with Denmark leading the way.

We certainly do not encourage any of these activities as it causes new policies to be implemented that affect all players.