The internet gaming casino industry looks like easy money. Thousands of players are cashing out with bags of money daily, owners of internet gaming casinos and poker rooms are listing their websites on AIM (London's small company stock exchange) and making millions, and even affiliate companies are listing on the stock exchange and making a pretty penny. There is so much money running around in this industry one might think that it's falling from the sky and there is enough to go around for everyone. Theoretically that might be the case in an ideal world, but this is business and in the business world not everyone succeeds. There are sharks out there who will take advantage of others, huge companies that will blatantly rip-off the little guy, and eventually those who will simply lower their rates for awhile until the little guy dies off completely. There are those out there who will make mucho dinero in the internet gaming and poker room industry, these are those with the vision to start out many moons ago with their web portal and those with the money to start out big.
Unfortunately I recently came across a tale of woe from someone in a message room I happen to moderate (http://www.gambling-forum.com/forum2/showthread.php?t=40). This woman had tried to make money through a white label. A white label is a website that is owned by an individual, but ties to a main casino. The person does the advertising for the white label site and the casino pays money to the person for everyone who joins for real. It's basically a more complicated version of an affiliate program. Personally, while I actually have no experience whatsoever with white labels, they seem like a bad deal to me from the business end (on the white label buyer's side.) Buying a white label is an alternative for someone who would like to own their own casino but don't have the minimum of $100,000 to license the software from an internet casino software manufacturer (prices to license software run from about $100,000 from Cryptologic to over $250,000 for Microgaming and this is not including the marketing, customer service, hosting, or financial transaction fees.) In other words, white labels are for the little guy. These used to be called mirror sites, and the individuals who ran them didn't have to buy into anything to receive money from the players the mirror site brought to the casino. This is the main reason why I think white labels are a bad business deal for the small fry. If you want to make money from an internet gaming casino there's no reason to just make money from one. You can do an affiliate program and a gaming portal and make money from many.
Right now you are reading this article on a gaming portal. Gaming portals send players to the internet gaming casino of their choice and they make their money through affiliate marketing and through renting advertising space on their site. If a site has enough original content and enough information to bring players back again and again they will be able to make plenty of money. While the money per player may be higher with a white label the affiliate marketer isn't constricted to only one casino. Thus they are able to get more money by offering a wider selection. Besides, unless the white label offers something that the main casino does not there is no reason for a player to choose the white label over the main site which is probably better known and has a wider selection of bonuses on offer.
Posted on: November 15, 2005
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