How do I setup a freeroll tournament to get signups?

**northwester** · 18 November 2021, 4:49 pm

Hi all, I would like to host a $100 poker freeroll at any of the poker rooms and get people to sign up for the poker room through my affiliate link. I plan to market the freeroll to my mailing list. Can you please tell me which room(s) allow affiliates to setup a freeroll tournament? I asked poker stars and they said they no longer allow private tournaments.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

**PROFRBcom** · 19 November 2021, 4:13 pm

I have run many freerolls.

They yielded very few customers.

The customers they produced deposited very infrequently, and when they did deposit, those deposits, and subsequently the profits, were miniscule.

We no longer run freerolls, even when they are offered to us for free by the operators.

**AVC-Invest** · 19 November 2021, 5:08 pm

I would imagine you would need a solid contact in an actual online poker room to get this off the ground. Most poker rooms already offer freerolls, so they may question what value you are offering. Plus, if I was in charge of the poker room, I would want a larger financial commitment, IE 50 x $100 freerolls, where you pay $5,000 upfront, as they will have costs in setting this up, for example; adjusting the client software.

**northwester** · 19 November 2021, 5:16 pm

Thanks for the reply PROFRBcom. I'm surprised to hear that offering a freeroll tournament doesn't attract quality customers. I thought it would. I'm new to poker affiliate marketing.

What about this strategy to attract freeroll whores (aka grinders)?:

Host a private freeroll on a well known poker site like stars or party poker. Freerolls attract freeroll ****** looking for easy money on these sites. Mention the freeroll tournament on your poker website and include an email where the freeroll ***** can contact you. SEO the content so it appears in the search engine results. The freeroll ***** will search the internet for your password. When they ask you for the password for the freeroll say it's private and not available. Get their permission to contact them via email in the future about any other of your private free rolls. They'll say sure. Host any future private freerolls on new poker sites (not stars or party poker). According to Dealer Dan, there are 2-5 rooms that popup regularly. Instruct the freeroll ***** to sign up to the new poker site via your affiliate link (in your email). Lots of these people turn into grinders, generating you alot of revenue.

What do you think?

I can't post a link to the original article by Dealer Dan on Affiliate Bible because my post count is too low. But you can google it if you'd like.

Thank you for the input AVC-Invest. I appreciate it.

**PROFRBcom** · 20 November 2021, 10:21 am

Originally Posted by northwester

Thanks for the reply PROFRBcom. I'm surprised to hear that offering a freeroll tournament doesn't attract quality customers. I thought it would.... Lots of these people turn into grinders, generating you alot of revenue.

The problem is that this premise is incorrect.

Freeroll hunters are not "grinders".

Also, the second you give your freeroll password out, it gets shared in freeroll hunting groups on telegram, whatsapp, reddit, 2+2, .ru sites, etc. You cannot keep it private, and your freeroll gets flooded with lots of people who are NOT customers.

Again, those that are new to you room and sign up, almost NEVER deposit, so the only revenue you get from them is if they win the freeroll and then **** the money away on the cash game tables (freeroll players are not winning poker players, or they would have an actual bankroll to play with already).

The time you spend talking to these people to get their permission/email/etc is a waste. Even if it is automated, it is a waste.

Dealer Dan is a good dude. His content is outdated however.

Freerolls were a good marketing tool in the 2000s, but not in the 2020s.

You can take my word for this, or not... but I run a sizeable poker affiliate website and we don't run freerolls if that means anything. I even thought about hiring someone to manage freerolls for us, just to go after the KW and the traffic (to artificially inflate our stats, for bragging rights or negotiating leverage with clueless AMs), but alas, I couldn't even figure out how to make that monetarily feasible without hiring someone from the 3rd world and paying them $5/hr or less.

TLDR; I think your time is better spent elsewhere.

**AVC-Invest** · 20 November 2021, 11:03 am

There is nothing more tedious than playing a freeroll for many hours only to win a couple of dollars (or cents)......as PROFB said correctly, in the 2000s freerolls were a big deal and offered genuine value with big prizes! Now all that is offered is $100 etc. You will be playing for hours for virtually nothing.

**northwester** · 22 November 2021, 5:30 am

Originally Posted by PROFRBcom

The problem is that this premise is incorrect.

Freeroll hunters are not "grinders".

Also, the second you give your freeroll password out, it gets shared in freeroll hunting groups on telegram, whatsapp, reddit, 2+2, .ru sites, etc. You cannot keep it private, and your freeroll gets flooded with lots of people who are NOT customers.

Again, those that are new to you room and sign up, almost NEVER deposit, so the only revenue you get from them is if they win the freeroll and then **** the money away on the cash game tables (freeroll players are not winning poker players, or they would have an actual bankroll to play with already).

The time you spend talking to these people to get their permission/email/etc is a waste. Even if it is automated, it is a waste.

Dealer Dan is a good dude. His content is outdated however.

Freerolls were a good marketing tool in the 2000s, but not in the 2020s.

You can take my word for this, or not... but I run a sizeable poker affiliate website and we don't run freerolls if that means anything. I even thought about hiring someone to manage freerolls for us, just to go after the KW and the traffic (to artificially inflate our stats, for bragging rights or negotiating leverage with clueless AMs), but alas, I couldn't even figure out how to make that monetarily feasible without hiring someone from the 3rd world and paying them $5/hr or less.

TLDR; I think your time is better spent elsewhere.

Thanks for the reply PROFRBcom. Can you please tell me what the best way to make money as a poker affiliate is? For instance, should I build a large email list of poker players (eg 3000+ subscribers) by offering a lead magnet and then send a copy written email/sos email sequence to get them to sign up to play blackjack at an online casino? Dealer dan once said that blackjack is the number one game among poker players because it involves strategy, similar to poker.

What do you think of this strategy?

Focusing on hot traffic seems to be the way most affiliates are making money in the poker niche. They focus on SEOing their site to rank for buyer keywords like "Poker Stars bonus codes". Do you think this strategy is effective?

Thanks

**chaumi** · 22 November 2021, 6:54 am

NW You are probably going to find that to have any chance with 'big' poker terms, you needed to have started 10 years ago (or more). There are some deeply entrenched names with very deep pockets that you will be up against (not that they actually need deep pockets, they are there on many years of authority)....and it's highly likely this can't turn into a David vs Goliath scenario. Well, not with the David wins outcome anyway.

Targeting such terms as 'Poker Stars bonus codes'......or 'any well known poker room bonus codes' can only end one way.

You probably need to be thinking 'outside the box'. (I dislike the term same as anybody, but it fits and can't think of anything else quickly)

**Jambo** · 22 November 2021, 8:01 am

Originally Posted by northwester

Can you please tell me what the best way to make money as a poker affiliate is?

You need traffic, traffic, traffic! Freeroll Tournaments or No Deposit Bonuses will not help to make any money. It will generate traffic, but not the traffic you need to make money. You need depositor and no bonus hunter.

Honestly, if you are new and just start now with a site, it is almost impossible to make good money. Competition is too big and you really need something special to get good traffic. It is not impossible, don't get me wrong, but you need a lot of patience and money to invest.

**PROFRBcom** · 22 November 2021, 10:35 am

Originally Posted by northwester

Thanks for the reply PROFRBcom. Can you please tell me what the best way to make money as a poker affiliate is? For instance, should I build a large email list of poker players (eg 3000+ subscribers) by offering a lead magnet and then send a copy written email/sos email sequence to get them to sign up to play blackjack at an online casino? Dealer dan once said that blackjack is the number one game among poker players because it involves strategy, similar to poker.

What do you think of this strategy?

Focusing on hot traffic seems to be the way most affiliates are making money in the poker niche. They focus on SEOing their site to rank for buyer keywords like "Poker Stars bonus codes". Do you think this strategy is effective?

Thanks

We also don't do any email marketing. It might work, but I never bothered with a newsletter or any of that crap. I'm not sure how you would build a large email list of poker players anyway... poker players don't like to give out information in general IMHO. Sure, you could create and give away some sort of strategy guide or something, but most of these products suck and there is so much free information out there already, I don't think you'll get many legitimate email addresses this way.

Plus... how would you get people to your offer in the first place? Tough.

Pitching blackjack to poker players? Meh. Of course you could try, but I think the first thing you need is actual poker traffic before you pitch casino ideas. Out of ~2 million words on our main website, I think we have ~2 thousand dedicated to blackjack. If a player wants to play blackjack, they will find the casino attached to the poker site (very few "poker sites" are pure poker, almost all have a casino and/or sportsbook attached).

Like Chaumi already said, going after "Poker Stars bonus codes" is a non-starter, you'll never get anywhere near that KW with a new website. You might try seeking out small, low-competition poker sites and trying to get KW like that for them. The only problem with this approach is that they are small, low-competition poker sites for a reason... they have few users and low profit potential. Our 3rd-tier poker site offerings make very little profit. If I combine them all together I *might* be able to pay for one member of my staff's salary for the month... maybe lol.

Then again, money is relative, you might be very happy to make a few hundred, or a couple thousand dollars a month as a poker affiliate.

My advice would be to build traffic by going after low competition KW, long-tail KW, etc and creating the absolute best content on the web for that topic. This involves reading everyone who ranks in the top 10 or 20 results, taking the best elements from their work, recreating it for yourself, doing your own personal research to augment what is already out there, organizing it in the best possible manner for both the user and the search engines, and then praying to the poker gods that it works (most of the time, it won't lol). But if you do this 100 times, some of the articles will rank and stick and eventually you will build up some traffic with which to monetize your site.

Question: What is your background in poker? Why did you choose this vertical specifically? Poker is not nearly as profitable as sports or casino affiliate work and it is only SLIGHTLY easier to compete and rank.

**baldidiot** · 22 November 2021, 11:30 am

Funnily enough this was exactly the very first thing I tried when dipping my toe in the affiliate waters. Used to do freerolls on the prima network and put the password on a one page site that had also bonuses for the sites on the network. Think this was around 2004.

Got sign ups but pretty much zero rev. Like the others have said, freeroll hunters don't spend money - that's why they're hunting for freerolls...

**northwester** · 22 November 2021, 1:56 pm

Thanks for the input PROFRBCom. I didn't know that casino and sportsbook are more profitable than poker. I'm learning something new every time I visit this forum

My background: I play micro limits (NL2) from time to time on Poker stars. but I'm not a grinder by any means. I'm more into affiliate marketing/stock trading. I just read a book called DotCom Secrets by Russell Brunson. It's a great marketing book. I've always been wanting to get involved with poker affiliate marketing because of all the success stories I've read from affiliates. This was back in the day when CPA offers in this industry were common place. I read one story about one affiliate making over $10,000 a month from his poker site and he was getting something like $75 per signup. This really motivates me. I'm not sure what kind of profit is possible with rev share though.

**PROFRBcom** · 22 November 2021, 2:22 pm

Originally Posted by PROFRBcom

Then again, money is relative, you might be very happy to make a few hundred, or a couple thousand dollars a month as a poker affiliate.

Originally Posted by northwester

This was back in the day when CPA offers in this industry were common place. I read one story about one affiliate making over $10,000 a month from his poker site and he was getting something like $75 per signup. This really motivates me. I'm not sure what kind of profit is possible with rev share though.

A $75 CPA is garbage. If someone offered me one, I would laugh and the conversation would be over at that point. I wouldn't be interested in a $275 CPA for that matter. Revenue share is the long-term play. Always go for rev-share unless you are broke and cannot pay the bills, in which case, this is the wrong industry for you.

Also, there are plenty of affiliates who wouldn't get out of bed for $10,000 a month, so like I said before, money is relative. And I suspect even more so that you would be very happy to make a few hundred/thousand dollars a month as a poker affiliate.

You say you are "into affiliate marketing" and "stock trading". But if you are trading stocks and $10k is a lot of money to you, it isn't a viable career. You don't have enough capital to make it long-term. Trust me on this one.

WRT Affiliate Marketing skills, what are yours? Have you created successful websites of any kind already? If you have, you have some skills that might be useful to an existing affiliate. If not, you have a very long journey ahead of you.

**Strider1973** · 22 November 2021, 3:47 pm

Originally Posted by PROFRBcom

Also, there are plenty of affiliates who wouldn't get out of bed for $10,000 a month

Well, but there are cases of a forum moderator who was in need of money, a well-respected 10+ years poker affiliate that needed 10k$ to pay medical treatment, and several other 5-10 year veteran affiliates who were risking their online reputation by not paying a content writer bill of less than 1k$.

Originally Posted by chaumi

NW You are probably going to find that to have any chance with 'big' poker terms, you needed to have started 10 years ago (or more).

Actually, NW signed up in 2010. So what did you do in the past 11 years?

And my advice to you is: forget poker and anything that exists for 10+ years. You don't have a chance against the existing competition, and you are wasting your time in a declining market. Find something that is new and trending. It's much easier to ride a wave than to swim against the current. Good luck!

**AVC-Invest** · 22 November 2021, 4:14 pm

Meh.....I wouldn't get out of bed for less than $25k a day......

**northwester** · 22 November 2021, 9:22 pm

Originally Posted by PROFRBcom

WRT Affiliate Marketing skills, what are yours? Have you created successful websites of any kind already? If you have, you have some skills that might be useful to an existing affiliate. If not, you have a very long journey ahead of you.

Thanks for the response. I appreciate your help. I create both Wordpress sites and HTML landing pages. I usually create 5-10 page niche sites. I don't do authority sites (eg 100+ pages).

**pokeraussie** · 22 November 2021, 11:22 pm

Can confirm freeroll traffic is worthless. I had a dedicated freeroll site and it didn't earn anything.

**chaumi** · 23 November 2021, 1:05 am

Originally Posted by northwester

I usually create 5-10 page niche sites. I don't do authority sites (eg 100+ pages).

I think this makes where you're at a bit clearer and possibly partly explains the questions....

So you've been building niche affiliate sites (probably products, maybe services) and likely had some success, and thought you might be able to replicate in gambling.

I'd be surprised if 10 pagers work in anything any more...but for gambling it's almost certain they won't. Perhaps if you can find a specific (laser-targeted...bingo!) subject you might be able to get some traction...but others will already have got there (including some of the big boys). What you do will have to be very good...and of course if it's a narrow subject, then you'll need to choose carefully or there won't be enough potential return from it.

But if you decide to try that then 1) work out if there is any money in it before you waste the time/money ...and 2) then do it but don't worry about monetizing it till you see some form of positive result. But do it in the knowledge that it's a test to see what chances you do have (ie...go into it knowing you might spend time/money and end up with nothing other than a site you might be able to sell at some point).

If you want to show some examples of what you've done before, you will get some feedback on whether you have a chance with anything gambling-related. Feel free to pm if you don't want to say openly.

....and be aware....assuming you would be looking for search engine traffic.....at any point you will be at the mercy of the algorithms. For example, one day G can decide 'right, any site that has less than x pages on x subject cannot possibly be authoritative, deindex it or don't bother ever crawling it'.

Whatever you do, you will have to do it to death.

**baldidiot** · 23 November 2021, 11:43 am

Originally Posted by northwester

Thanks for the response. I appreciate your help. I create both Wordpress sites and HTML landing pages. I usually create 5-10 page niche sites. I don't do authority sites (eg 100+ pages).

How much success have you had and how competitive were the terms?

Tbh even with laser targeted micro terms the kind of niche sites you're talking about have been overrun since the december update last year.

**MikeOck** · 1 February 2023, 2:11 pm

Better to do cheap tournaments than completely free. It is much easier to upgrade someone who has paid something small, rather than to convert someone who has paid nothing at all. Woe unto you if the person wins a bit of money in the free tournament, they will become very entitled. For freemium to work well, you have to be expecting millions of users, if not tens of millions. If you are only expecting a few thousand users, you better charge them all

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