It is no longer a secret. Thousands of people make money through poker online. In fact, you can also qualify for the World Series of Poker through the Internet. Chris Moneymaker did it in 2003 and won the event, taking home $2.5M after qualifying for the event through an $86 satellite tournament.
Now, not everyone can become a millionaire from online poker. But it probably wouldn’t hurt to make an $100 or $1000, right? In that case, read this article to the end.
Play Poker for Money
Poker is a casino game, and that means you can play it for real cash. There’s serious money in poker, with top-tier players winning up to $10M in single events.
Fortunately, there are also low-cost poker games. You can participate in online poker tournaments that cost $5 or $10 per game. If you have a bigger budget, you can get into games that cost over $50.
That being said, poker comes in many types:
- Texas Hold’em
- Omaha
- Seven-Card Stud
- Five-card draw
- Caribbean Poker
- Three-Card Poker
- HORSE
Texas Hold’em, Omaha and 2-7 Card Draw are the most popular poker games. Learn these games and specialize in one of them. Next, gain experience by playing poker for free or at low-cost competitions. With experience, you can win tournaments and make money in the process.
Crucially, choose casinos for real money poker with Gamble online. This is particularly important if you want to earn rake back, or find sites with high traffic all-day around.
Start a Poker Blog
So, you’re not confident about your poker skills? Start a poker blog to cover news, guides and updates related to the game. You can earn more money than most poker players. Seriously—the top 10% of bloggers make over $100,000 per year.
Making money through a blog is easier said than done, though. Here’s why. You need tens of thousands of monthly web visitors to make decent money. And customizing your blog to attract quality traffic is challenging.
Of course, you can do it. All you need is to publish valuable content on your blog. Use keyword research tools to discover poker-related topics people search for every month. Then create content centered on these keywords.
Once you succeed in attracting regular web traffic, next you can monetize your website through:
- Display Ads
- Affiliate Marketing
- Selling poker merchandise
- Sponsored Content
Affiliate marketing is incredibly rewarding and can send you into early retirement. It involves marketing products or service for commissions—once people buy through links posted on your blog. The other options are less profitable but can earn you decent cash, nonetheless.
Create a Free to Play Poker App
For some people, there’s beauty in enjoying poker with friends and strangers online, even if it’s not for real cash. All they need is an efficient poker app with a variety of poker games and tournaments.
Nowadays, there’s a focus on apps with real human traffic. That means you need to design an app which supports real-time competitions. With human traffic comes limitless opportunities to monetize your app.
You can run ads on your poker app. Just ensure you place them accordingly: most people dislike ads. A better monetization strategy is to charge players for betting chips. Yes, it’s a free to play app. But you can sell millions of chips for $5 or $10 to enthusiastic players.
That being said, running a successful poker app requires commitment. You need a team of developers that ensures the app runs 24/7 without bugs. You also need a customer service department to solve players’ issues.
Stream Poker on YouTube and Twitch
YouTube and Twitch are money-making machines for online gamers. Top streamers make in excess of $1M per year. Of course, these are celebrity gamers who stream content for popular video games like Fortnite, CS: GO, League of Legends and PUBG.
Like running a blog, the toughest job of running a YouTube or Twitch channel is creating content people want to consume. Most people spend months while streaming to no one. That’s because they share saturated content or don’t know how to market their channel.
For a poker channel, you can center your content on famous poker players—their playing styles, upcoming tournaments, spouses and biggest wins. Or you can share informative content to help people become better poker players.
After you gain a steady flow of traffic, you can monetize your channel through ads, affiliate links or selling merchandise. You can also ask for donations or sign endorsement deals that pay thousands of dollars per post.
Create a Course on Poker
What do Skillshare, Udemy, edX and Coursera have in common? They are platforms where you can sell and buy courses. Courses start at $0, average $10 to $100 but can get as expensive as $5000.
If you’re a poker expert with tips you could share with the world, consider compiling them into a course. You can create an introductory course for newbies. Or can you draft a course for intermediary players.
The beauty of courses is that there are platforms to sell your course. All you need is to create the course and upload it on Udemy or an alternative platform.
Create a Poker School
If you don’t want to share your profits with Udemy, you can create a website to sell your skills. You can train people through one-on-one classes. Alternatively, you can hire other experienced poker experts to run your school with you.
Running an online poker school can be taxing and expensive. But the rewards can be great. That’s because there’s a huge demand for poker trainers and a scarcity for trainers with actionable knowledge.
Summary
It’s true—you can make money from online poker. And you don’t have to be the best poker player in the world. You can participate in low-cost tournaments. On the flip side, you can provide your services through a website or YouTube channel and monetize it. The only catch is that you need to work hard and smart by finding the right audience for your content.
