Question on Afilliate Earnings

[Cerril]

I decided long before I learned much about the affiliate process that I'm not a marketing or PR person, and I wouldn't want to go after that side of the business even if it were obviously more lucrative than playing poker. After all, I play poker because I -enjoy- it, not because it's the best money available to me.

A friend of mine on learning of the existence of rakeback deals immediately hatched a plan to become an affiliate and rake in the big bucks on other peoples' backs. Not that he'll go through with it. He isn't capable of following a plan through to fruition, far as I know.

All that said, it seems to me that the competition is -heavy- in the affiliate market (being a 'money for nothing' proposition would seem to be a sweet deal for a lot of people) and that both types of competition (offering a better % and having a more divided customer base) would make it difficult to make much money.

So the question that's been percolating through my mind is how, roughly, a successful affiliate (individual's) earnings correspond to those of a successful poker player... of course a successful poker player could range from 1500-10k+ per month, based on any number of factors, so feel free to be as vague or specific as you'd like. I understand the hours are long and just like playing the game itself, selling the game requires a particular sort of person who enjoys doing that, I'm just sort of curious how many people you 'need' to have under you to make respectable money, what an individual winning player makes for their affiliate compared to the sum total (winnings+rakeback) of what they make for themselves... essentially a FAQ about the money side of the affiliate process.

I'm less interested in what goes into becoming successful, except as it applies to different 'classes' (ones who operate through word of mouth, ones who blanket the web with banners, ones who primarily operate through websites - anything that could qualify as a major difference) -as- those classes differ in terms of income.

Yes it's prying, but I'm curious and I imagine someone won't mind sharing.

[AAAA]

The easiest way to look at it is if you consider your rake share 100% of an income, and many players generate $5000 per month in rake. If you get 1% of the rake generated by a $5000 a month player, you would need 100 players to earn $5000 per month. If you get 5% you would need 20 players; if you get 10% you would need 10 players. Remember you can turn 2 $2500 player into one $5000 a month player, or 5 $1000.....

If you have to have two people to do the job, then you can almost double those numbers, and so on.

We have a programmer, two marketing/support staff, and an accountant type and 50 subaffiliates who actively work part time and hundreds of players who occasionally refer someone.

P.S. In addition to just sitting on our butts getting fat, we also do dispute mediation, and problem solving for registration and bonus problems, answering lots and lots of the same questions over and over, and negotiating deals with sites for ever increasing amounts to go back to players. We even pretend to listen to bad beats!

WARNING: the material below is detail that may not be of interest to those who just want to know the Top Line...

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That assumes you have no expenses. If you consider that you have 30% or more in marketing, website devlopment and other expenses, you can probably figure out for yourself.

BTW, some of the best referral people are those like you who don't consider themself salesman types. People like to get help from people who have already asked the questions for them about the details. You just need a little help in learning how to simplify some of the details. Obviously I am still learning.

Perhaps the best reason for a player to dip his toes into the affiliate market is to protect himself at tax time. There are lots of items that IRS may disallow as expenses for a part time gambler, if they do not allow you to "net" your wins and losses, but they cannot disallow those expenses for an internet marketer who is generating income.

Essentially, you can write off up to 100% of your affiliate income as legitimate business expenses, even if you might not qualify for the professional gambler schedule C treatment.