blonde poker forum

My main concern about going public with the details of my business idea was that the idea was so good that someone would steal it.

Unfortunately it's got to the point where I'm worried it's any good at all and am thinking twice about even going forward with it.

So I've created this thread to gain more insight into what as many people as possible think about it. I've spoken to many many people about it already, and have read very carefully everyone's posts on this topic already so I know a fair bit about where Blonde stands on the issue. Many people dislike it. Quite how many I don't know. A few have spoken up, but I'm sure there's lots on the sidelines keeping quiet but also don't like it. Similarly, many people like it, have said so, and I hope there's also many in the sidelines who'll like it too :)

OK so here goes.

What is Poker Bay?

Poker Bay is an online auction site where you can buy and sell action in poker tournaments.

How did Poker Bay come about?

Credit where credit's due - James Keys came up with the auction concept late 2011 and used it to sell shares in a £1000 tournament.

As an investor myself, I became frustrated when excellent players sold packages that were brilliant value – but sold out before I had the chance to get involved. I concluded that people undervalue themselves, or perhaps more correctly, misunderstood the market in which they’re selling and I thought they could get a much better price if they used James’ auction idea.

I'm creating Poker Bay as a solution to this problem and a global market place for people to buy and sell action in poker tournaments.

How does Poker Bay make money?

Each seller pays a small fee (between 1% and 4% of the size of the package) for each package they sell. Buyers can bid for free. 15% of the mark-up profit is kept by Poker Bay.

How does Poker Bay work?

1.   Seller wants to sell shares in a tournament, an auction begins
2.   Buyers bid for shares.
3.   At the end of the auction the price is finalised and winning bidders pay Poker Bay for their shares.
4.   To protect our buyers from being scammed we’ll hang onto the staking money until the tournament is complete. (Unless you have collected enough reward points to qualify for pre-tournament payment)
5.   Seller plays the tournament.
6.   If eliminated before the money, we send the seller their staking money plus their share of the mark-up profit. If they cash, we wait to confirm how much they cashed for and then we tell them how much they need to send us.
7.   Once sent, we distribute the winnings to the buyers.

Why use Poker Bay?

What we offer sellers
•   A huge market of buyers meaning you’re almost certain to sell out on any package
•   The auction element will drive prices right up – you’ll get a better markup price that you would feel comfortable asking on a forum for, or asking your mates.
•   You get the money all in one go. No more chasing up individual buyers for payment or having to keep checking your bank account to see who has and hasn’t paid.
•   No hassle with sending returns. We deal with the individual buyers so you don’t have to go through the hassle of individually sending returns.

What we offer buyers
•   A huge range of investment opportunities across all stakes.
•   Fairer prices – the market decides what price you buy at, so you can pick and chose whatever you think is the best value and will no longer be priced out by people charging too much.
•   Money back guarantee – if the player goes AWOL and doesn’t play / doesn’t return any winnings, you get your money back. One strike policy for such scammers.
•   A wealth of information about sellers. References, feedback, recommendation system, history checks, sharkscope links and in-bedded Hendon mobs in player profiles etc, meaning you can make an informed decision.
•   A great place to sweat the action once the tournament is underway in the comments section of each auction.

The Downsides

•   Auctions might drive up prices to the point where buyers get no value for money. In the very long term they probably will. In the short term the auctions that have taken place already have shown there's some great value to be had. I won't speculate on what I think has been good value and what hasn't in the past but I know there's been auctions where the final price has been quite significantly below what I would determine as good value. Similarly there's been bad value final prices which works the other way. So I imagine it'll a mixed bag of investment opportunities. Some great deals, some not so great ones. Either way, the market decides these not the players, so there can be no complaints there.
•   There's still no guarantee that players won't bink and run. No way around that, there's always going to be a risk of that when staking. The one thing Poker Bay does offer is a money back guarantee for players who haven't qualified for pre tournament payment.
•   Auctions can be rigged and prices hikes by players getting mates to bid and work up the prices. There will be methods to monitor this sort of behaviour but the best way to avoid exposure to this is of course, to only invest in people you trust.

Normal service has now been resumed.

Apologies for that break in transmission.


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Looks like a good idea, although you say the money isn't released until after the game is played, wouldn't this mean those players looking fro stakes because they don't have the funds are excluded, a fair part of your target market there i''d have thought?

Where is herbie?

Are you just paying the stake back or covering the lost winnings?

If it's the latter are you insuring yourself against it?

Agree with this.  If it's sold at a mark up, maybe hold back the excess until settling after the event?

Being honest I don't see the benefits as being huge UNLESS you can get enough traffic. By which time u may have spent a lot of money on the site.

Also, ur money back guarantee is going to cost u an awful lot of money in the short term.

 was still reading Vinny.

What JB says. Most people this appeals to are potless and is the main reason for backing.

Can you give an example of how much is lost by the staker and the staked person when paying the 1-4% and 15% to poker bay ( an example in the £1k monte Carlo would be usefull )

Have you seen how you compare to the competition.

What advantage do I have going with you rather than using the free service at blonde ( thinking about it will it affect blonde )

persoanlly, i think i can normally sell out on a value figure that I believe is good for both me and investors. I.e Barca at 1.25 which sold out very quickly meaning I could have sold out a little higher maybe, even perhaps at an auction price, but if I sold again tomorrow, I'd definitely sell at 1.25.

Also if I am ocnfident selling out elsewhere then paying 1-4% in the long run will hurt.

Just paying the stake back, but that whole idea is up for change.

My thoughts were the main target Market don't need the money up front, they sell to reduce variance rather than literally needing the cash. So they might not mind that system.

For those that need the money, I was thinking about getting them to send their share to me, then i buy them in over the phone or whatever to the comp concerned. That's not in the plan right now, but it's an idea.

But you can't be anywhere value at 1.25 going on your record can you Patrick? The shrewd reg investors know this (Dubai/bobby/SG) but you could sell out at 1.5 because you are a popular guy not because you are a good investment. You probably get an extra .1 just for your tourney reports

the main issue that I see being is user base.  I think you have over-estimated the market massively, and a lot of people who sell action will already have many regular buyers, who won't want to ditch these buyers in favour of an auction format for many many reasons.

blonde is fairly unique in terms of UK Poker forums where the staking board is active and I think that this has clouded your judgement as to whether there is a need for this kind of service.  the reason why the blonde staking board is such a (relative) success is due to loyalty and friendships that have formed via this site and at DTD and other live venues.  I can't see many people turning their back on blonde for the sake of trying to get an extra point here and there by using your site.

and if you look at something like the hendon mob forum, attached to probably the most successful UK poker site, where they don't have a staking board and just the odd thread here or there on their General Poker Chat, that should tell you loads about the potential market.

while poker is fairly popular now, most casual/recreational players just prefer making informal arrangements with friends and dealing with cash rather than dealing with strangers and having to arrange transfers.

Good points scotty

If your main target market is those type of players they already sell on poker forums and to mates who also play poker. They don't get anything out of paying for the service do they

What we offer sellers
•   A huge market of buyers meaning you’re almost certain to sell out on any package

How will you gain this 'huge' market.  I think that poker is such a tough tough market to crack in terms of getting people involved.  Most people in poker just like to play, end of.  And when they do need to get staking, then they are just gonna ask around mates live or on skype/facebook.

While the audience isn't the same, I do realise how hard it is to get people engaged in poker. The viewing figures for Sky Poker TV are pretty massive for such a niche channel, and before I was involved there I would have guessed at something like 1/10th of the actual viewing figures.  Now the people who actually engage with the channel and send in comments/hands/tweets is just tiny.  Miniscule.  And we spend a lot of air time asking for them.

Like I said before, a successful forum like blonde has clouded your judgement on how viable this business will be....I understand how easy it is to get carried away tho and think that poker is more popular than it is....when you see DTD packed out for stuff like UKIPTs etc but the reailty is that the majority are just punters who wanna have fun and couldn't care less about an auction staking site...

They do, read the "why use poker bay" post.

However it is an interesting idea and something that if it was launched I would certainly sign up and make use of the service, both as a buyer and a seller, which I would imagine most of your friends in poker would do too.

But these group of friends wouldn't be able to make it a viable business.  And I struggle to see how people outside of blonde would make use of it.

Ask everyone in the grand prix if the wanna play the £500 deepstack next month. There is your market right there. Works on the same principle as the old kirby vacuum cleaner sales pitches back in the day. Get family and friends to buy em up.

why would friends and family bid on a site and pay commission to buy a piece?

what I think is likely to happen is that you will get a flood of posts on the new site ASKING for staking.  stuff like...

yeah im a sick player man but I just don't have the roll to play 500s.  I don't like online but live I have an insane hedge.  Here's my hendon mob with a min cash in the GP in 2011 where I lost a massive flip and I woulda won if I'd have just binked an A lol.

where are the buyers gonna come from?  IMO the buyers will only come from here and nowhere else.

I don't think it's a good idea personally Al.

People like Brammer / Marc / Dubai etc who occasionally sell big packages aren't going to want to pay these fees when they can just sell their action through blonde/facebook and not pay those rates.

Wow

First thought is I cannot see it working ..But good luck Alex

Are there enough players/events out there to get staked in the UK?

If you go abroad. Will a man living in Germany/Finland etc risk his money on a site like this with no regulation.

Will Visa/Mastercard or anyone process payments.

Your selling a service not a item. What are the VAT implications?

Some young dude 21yr old has a good DTD 6 month run and sells 80% of himself in WPT @ Bellagio. Wins $2.75M and you never see him again.
Is there anything the law could do about it overseas. As if they would give a shit. I Suppose they would if they can nab 30%

I think to get the ball rolling I'd ask Bobby1 for advice. This man is the oracle of remote gaming.

Could you offer it to some established gaming site and pinch a % to run it. ? DTD has the resources.

I think the set up costs alone would be huge IT , Marketing , Even low rent poker mags, a page will be £1k

To sum up. I'm out. And at best I think this is a pitch to some company which already has the infrastructure to even have a decent crack.

But keep that brain turning over with ideas.

Good Luck in Columbia. Bink it and enjoy.

Regards

M
      
  

I still like the idea.

I think a host of the negative feelings towards the auctions are mostly that they are not so much "in the spirit" of Blonde Poker, being a community over a market place, in your site, it would be a market place more than a community, which would lend itself nicely to the concept.

I don't agree with Cos that Brammer etc wouldn't use his auction metod on a huge package. Use the $60k WSOP package for example that was like a $50k package at 1.2 - if he got charged 1.5% ($750) but with his auction system was able to achieve 1.3, not 1.2 (a pretty realistic increase) AND have someone control all the collecting of money etc over the buys so no tilt with people having tiny %'s etc then he's decreased his exposure by $5,000, which is well worth $750 for imo and when you factor the small amount of protection your offering I think it'd be well worth it.

I think it's going to take a while to get up and running, your problems initially are going to be a condensed and under-liquid buyer-base, if you can expand over to international markets as well you'd be onto a winner for SURE :)

Is there any way of getting a system with all the forums that have staking forums so that whenever anyone starts an auction it snap starts a thread on them that links them to you site?

Just a thought about numbers

blonde has just over 20000 Members. I think out of the 20k folk of blonde. It would be surprising
to me if the number of unique people staking or being rolled is over 0.75%-1% Max of membership.

I just can't see the opportunity to make money.   

Regards

M

I think to succeed you need to find a new source of cash.  A significant proportion of the bigger stakers here have been fairly vocal in their dislike of auctions.  Without buyers it fails.

I do think the current golden period on blonde is blinding you a bit.  And there isn't really a problem, people can and so sell here, so you aren't really doing anything new, just making it a bit easier.

It appears quite a few people who are fans of the auctions are connected to you in some way.  I think in business you don't just have to be clean, you need to appear to be clean.

What happens if the auction ends at 0.8?

Don't like the idea of you effectively acting as guarantor, given how little control you have of the stakees.  I expect your site will be a magnet for every scamming scrote in the UK.  Especially those black marked by 2 plus 2 and chipmeup.

I am not sure you will get away with poker bay.  It is too close to ebay and is an auction site.  Not sure if there is much of an advantage in using that name, and there could be a very big disadvantage.  Finding yourself on the end of a legal action is time consuming, draining and expensive.  Even when you win, you lose.  Trust me on this.  

But mainly I think the costs of something like this will be large, the market will be small and the commission will have to be small.  Just can't see it working.  Sorry.

Good luck

Poker players are really nitty on the whole especially when it comes to EV, I think a lot just won't like the idea of having to pay fees when they can easily sell on here and other forums.

Also if it does become a success, what's stopping someone doing a much better version of it and nicking your business?

There was a staking site a couple of years back which sold shares of people willing to sell, can't remember the name maybe poker chip or something like that?. Its wasn't an auction, just a site where you could buy shares of players at whatever mark up they wanted, but it isn't that different from what your proposing. They seemed to have disappeared now and they had the marketing backing of one of the big sites like poker news if think, if they can't make a go of it I worry for you.

Thanks all for the posts, very constructive and helpful. Keep them coming :)

You don't have to run auctions, you could also have a buy-it-now type option where the price is fixed.

I think the main benefits should be:

a) easy to find proposals
b) escrow service

The auction bit is a side bit imo.

Seems a lot like chipmeup (which I hadn't heard of until now).

Not really sure it's a goer, tbh.

Might need to call it something else as theirs a youtube-esque video site called the poker bay. Don't think this will work unless it was tied on the back of an existing poker company loke bad beat/BRS/Blonde

Would also lower fees so they are fairly small, they can be increased once you establish yourself. If traffic is good then you could stodge it out a bit with some affiliate banners like BlondeP.

Over my years in the gaming business I have seen a lot of business plans and ideas looking for funding and a lot of them are very ill thought out.  This doesn't fall into that category and I think there is definitely an idea there but I think there are a lot of potential hurdles.  

Firstly, how do you deal with payment processing.  For gaming businesses this is hugely expensive and normally requires a big deposit, references etc.  How do you protect against chargebacks etc?
Secondly, have you modelled this financially to see how many auctions you are going to need to break even on a monthly basis?  You will incur costs and it may be that with the average stake being at, say, 1.3 for a $1k then 15% of the markup is $45 or £30...with expenses of, say £3k a month you are going to have to run auctions to put 100 players in events monthly before you break even.  That is a lot more than is sold on blonde on a monthly basis.
Finally, would be worried about your customer base.  Think auctions probably work for fairly small pieces as they push up the prices above value because demand outstrips supply.  In bigger packages you would be struggling to get them better than they could get by marketing themselves to friends and contacts and paying nothing in fees and those are the packages you really want not the £300 deepstacks.  I would also echo the point many have made before about losing the demographic of those that sell because they cannot afford to play.

I think on balance it needs a fair bit of work doing before launching.

As a relative outsider who doesn't know you, you seem like an intelligent, smart guy who could be a success in any type of business.

I hope this works for you but maybe there might not be enough volume to make this a viable business.

Given your ability, I'd consider diversifying your risk. Both playing poker and having a business linked to poker staking doesn't do that. Poker is a business open to change and regulation (as we have seen in the USA).

For me, an old fart in his forties, I'd suggest if poker bay doesn't work out, maybe find a niche in something you would enjoy away from poker.

Good luck.

Hi Alex, i think its a nice idea, but dont think it would be easy to make it pay as a business.
There are going to be lots of costs involved in running/maintaining a website capable of handling safely big money transactions.I even a small e-commerce type website incurs large costs, too many people want a cut of the action, site host,credit/debit card firms, you will need a separate encryption provider,staff to help run, also the payout guarentee  thing could be big headache.
Good luck with it if you go ahead.

Thought I'd heard of it before...

http://www.thepokerbay.org/

Apologies if the link is out of line, but easy to google in either case.

You have no worries about poker bay because nobody can stop you using the word bay, but Pbay prob not.

Anyway, Ebay is a success because it appeals to all people and that is the knack of a good business idea. Your idea only appeals to poker players which is a very small % of all people. In addition buyers will only be interested in staking winning players who constitute a very small % of all players. And out of the few winning players only a small % will want staking. Therefore the biggest worry is your target market is so minuscule in the first place. And because your idea isn't protected you could face the prospect of competing for that tiny market with other sites in the future.

The site will introduce buyers to horses and if both parties are happy with the eventual price the buyer will contact the horse and offer to buy any future staking at that price, cutting out you and your fees. What's more you will be gambling that the players who get staked actually run good and have a positive ROI for the site. Obv there will be data about the history of horses for poker bay so if they don't win comps and fail to bring good advertsement to the table the service will lose it's appeal quite quickly. Don't forget there will be no fluffy staking based on contribution to the forum etc, it will be pure business.

I think it's worthwhile that a poker player wants to invest poker winnings into a business but imo you should think of something outside of poker. I don't think putting all your eggs in the poker gamble basket is a good idea for a pro player because the business could struggle and you could downswing so poker will be burning your money very quickly.

Would you allow people to sell packages or just individual tournaments?

For what it's worth I'm trying to say that if you start this thing please don't allow people to sell packages. You're giving yourself huge exposure to grimmers if you do.

Come the next world series you'll get loads of random people putting up threads selling $60k packages. They might only sell at 1:1 because nobody has a clue who they are. The stakers won't care though because everyone knows that the WSOP is easy and it's worth a punt at 1:1 if pokerbay guarantees the stake.

It only takes one of these $60k packages to go through and you're f**ked!

After reading a post as good as this, I would normally say something complimentary about the author, but I don't want to become part of Mantis's sig.

Why ever not Tom?

You'd be in excellent company.

Along the same lines would you cap the amount of staking someone asks for?

Also would you protect yourself against zero profit (for yourself) stakes?

Take Mr Random Fish. He wants to play the WSOP main event but he's only got $500 to his name.

He puts up a thread on pokerbay asking for staking.

Loads of people offer to buy a piece at 1:1 because that's all they think he's worth.

He sells his 95% because during WSOP there's a big market for pokerbay. What does pokerbay get out of this? From what you've said it's nothing.

All that's happened is you've guaranteed the stakers investment which is quite a large sum. Personally I'd be more than happy to throw a load of money at this at 1:1 hoping to get a few slices of random players in the WSOP. If an honest one binks I get paid. If a grimmer binks I get my money back.

Will running this business take up all of your time Alex? Are you prepared to make that sacrifice?

Actually I've just read that you only send sellers their money when they get knocked out.

This is actually great protection for grimmers.

They can keep selling huge %s at zero/tiny mark ups and only get outed if they win.

Maybe if they have a small win they could pay up. No point keeping the money in the early stages.

A few min cashes should get them enough of a following to be able to play something really big at some stage. Maybe they could save the grim for the min cash at the WSOP main. That'd be worth it. They don't even need to feel guilty about it either. They know that they aren't grimming the stakers. It's only the website that loses out and all thieves know it's ok as long as you don't steal from joe public.

Just spotted the reward points thing.

Brilliant. As a grimmer I can sell huge %s of lots of comps. I'll play them because I actually enjoy poker. If I win big I can settle my grim up early. If not I'll stick with the long con.

Once I've built up my reward points I can go for the big one. Let's make it the WSOP main event.

"Can I have my $10k up front please?" Now all I need to do I decide if I'm happy with my $10k or if I really want to go for it and get the entire world.

How could u prevent ppl from over selling or


How would you track players in tourneys that do not have their results published ie small casino tourneys or non Hendon mob tourneys

Rewards points system
You can gain rewards points by selling packages, returning profit to your backers and bidding on auctions and paying up in time.
Rewards points are a great way to show your reliability and will make a massive difference if you’re selling a package. You can also get reduced buyers and sellers fees.
Rewards Points (RPs) – 1point for a “no complaints” auction. Bonus points for an auction where you cash and return the profit to the buyers within 7 days –
o   5 points returning £100-£1000
o   10 points returning £1000-£5000
o   20points returning £5000-£20,000
o   40 points returning £20,000-£50,000
o   100 points returning £50,000+
Buying action and promptly paying gains you rewards points equal to 1% of the amount bought (rounded to the nearest £100). E.g. If you buy £240 worth of action, you get 2 points.

You need certain amount of rewards points to get the money upfront for certain buyins. E.g 30 points for a £3k stake. To get 30 points you'll have to have returned more than £3k so as a long term grim it won't work.

With you're example of MR Fish selling 95% of himself in the main. Firstly its 80% maximum, and secondly if he sold out at 1.0, I'd only profit from the seller's fee, which for a $9500 package, would be about $100.

Over selling as in, selling >100% of themselves by selling elsewhere? Can't help that.

Can't sell for comps that the results aren't published online.

Good idea? Yes.

Good business idea? No.

Also, James Keys did not invent the auction, I saw it well before 2011.

Good luck though.

I don't see how the running costs would be as high as people have said. What sort of costs? I was going to use sagepay (similar to paypal) as a payment gateway. So moving the money around costs not a lot. It'll cost my time and employing an accountant and probably someone to do admin work like organising the calendar of events etc. And Advertising and Promotion. What else?

I wouldn't need to sell many packages a month to breakeven at all. If my figures are realistic, I could sell 5 in the first month and 20 in the 12th month, and generate £10k revenue, which would cover the cost of the site and midway through the second year it'd start turning a profit.

So that's selling 20 packages a month by the second year. When I did the research there was 52 packages sold in a 2month period on blonde. If it takes off then I think that's possible.

10k seems a huge chunk to take out of the economy, how would it effect it if at all?

I hadn't thought of that.

Eh? I thought you were in the business? How can you possibly think that £10k is anything more than insignificant?

Every poker comp with a £100k prizepool takes that amount out.

Pokerstars take $15k every week from the Sunday million alone.

Alex's projected £10k means absolutely nothing.

I guess he means out of the UK staking economy where large amounts aren't taken out as there's never been any rake or commission before

It's still a tiny amount. If you assume 20 x £10k packages where I guess you'll take the minimum 1% from the seller. That's £2000 gone.

At 1.3 markup selling 50% that's another £4500 gone.

It's only £6500 out of £200k where they were paying approx £20k in rake anyway.

If it's just money out of the UK staking economy then it's only £4500 although it's out of £130k staked. Still not a lot really.

Can't see how it would be any problem at all.

Your only problem is grimmers and unfortunately it's a big problem.

I can't see where people think there are big running costs in this. Big set up costs yes but I'm pretty sure it can be run by one person with very little ongoing costs.

How many hours do you think you'd have to put in to generate the £10k projected first year revenue?

You say you'll be in profit after 18 months but have you taken paying yourself a wage in to account with this?

not taken into account paying a wage no. I think it'd mean I play less poker, but not much less. I think it'd just eat into the time I spend reading blonde and lazing in bed tbh!

So it's just a hobby then?

You still need to pay yourself a wage at some stage though otherwise what's the point. I understand that the profit will be your wage but you need to project how much that's going to be in order to figure out if you have a viable business.

If you could get it to run at a high enough volume to generate a reasonable wage for yourself how many hours would you have to spend running it?

I'd say that you want to be making £50k p/a out of it for it to be worth doing long term. How many hours would you have to invest? Don't forget that it's going to be taxed as well once you take it as a wage.

How would this compare to your projected (un-taxed) poker income?

Are you planning on people being able to auction off online action?

I think its too niche to be anything more than a non profit making site. Way too much competition from poker sites already providing platforms to sell action to people in their respective communitys to even entertain using a site where they take a cut. Auction a little gimicky imo.

I think there are many people who head into a project with this mentality, and then it just ends up taking over their life.

Sort of a cool idea dude but it will never work on the scale you'd like.

There is already chipmeup which has the backing of PokerNews/Tony G and I don't think it's all that successful and find it hard to imagine you topping them.

I think I'd rather just sell on Blonde tbh, seems much easier, and I'm one of your core demographic.

Yeah pretty much this.  if you don't plan for this to be a serious endeavour then don't do it all.   What happens when your site goes down 10pm when you are at Dtd.

Had a quick look at sagepay.  To use them you need a merchant business bank account.  These are
Very difficult to get for firms in the gaming arena.  Honestly if this is just a hobby I would give up now.  If it is a serious business then be prepared to go through a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy to get it set up legally.

I really think that this has a very small chance of success...

There are many staking sites out there already (many of which are struggling at best) and for it to have a chance of survival you will need to reach a 'critical mass' of both profitable players and stakers fairly quickly or it will just die a death. There is an issue as well that getting a site like this going has a certain 'chicken and the egg' conundrum in the fact that you need profitable horses to attract the stakers and you also need stakers to attract the profitable horses that are willing to sell their action publically.

With the type of setup you are looking to do, its actually quite important that the levels of both horses and stakers is relatively balanced as well or you will end with the situation where either the stakers get annoyed because there is too much competition over the few profitable horses there are floating about, or the players will get annoyed because there isn't enough interest in the action they are selling to to bid up the prices to what they feel is an acceptable price for them to sell at...


I also think you are vastly under estimating the amount of time this venture could take up with even only a few packages being sold a week... Obviously it will depend on the exact packages being sold but you could easily end up averaging 15 - 20 investors per package and the paperwork involved in sending and recieving all those transfers is gonna take time (and be boring as shit for the few $ you may be making).

Another issue that you may find is that when people bid on these packages some of them like to have the option of sending money online which will usually be Pokerstars transfer as its the largest site etc. Once you start transferring around large amounts of $ with comparably limited play you could easily run into restrictions as far as being able to make transfers and cash out (wether its your own money of TPB's). I believe if you can get an affiliate account and drive traffic to Stars through it you may be able to get away with more, as PTP does but thats not something I have any real or solid info on... I believe that you will need to closely check the t's and c's of Stars TOS and have a long conversation from someone inside the company before you will be able to use your own personal account for these transactions as I am pretty sure that if/when they find out they will at least block your account as they have issues with their IOM licensing which states that all players accounts must be solely for the purpose of playing poker and not carrying on a business etc... I can see a bank taking a dim view of all the transactions as well fwiw unless you get one of their tailored accounts which I am sure will include some kind of anal fee... Paypal may seem like an option but it really isn't as they won't have anything to do with poker or gambling (I nearly lost my paypal account over it and was blocked for 6 months etc while it was investigated).

As for offering insurance against grimming by people who have won from their stakes... Just don't. If there was a profitable way of doing it, it would be done by now. I can show you dozens of threads where this exact thing has been talked about and its just not viable.

The overall size of the staking market is also something that you have to take into account. The staking board here has a little action and there is small amounts of action on several other forums and we obviously have the 'big boys' ala 2+2 and chipmeup etc. I fear for this to have a chance at being profitable your going to have to look at getting an unrealistically significant portion of the market and if you even get close to a significant market share your going to have several other sites pop up mimicking your idea as soon as the ev of the idea goes above absolute zero (people will always think that they can do it better)...

May come up with some more thoughts after am done playing etc but my personal opinion is that you shouldn't put another penny or a minutes time into the idea...

I've been thinking about this while I was out tonight walking the dog. I wanted to consider how it might affect me as a staker and also as a person who sells shares on occasion.

As a staker I don't think I'd ever use the site. I only stake through blonde as a community thing and also a select few friends (mostly ex blondes). I think for me using this auction site would take the fun out of staking. I like the sweats and the rubz and for that you need a community or forum to be involved. Maybe you could tag a forum on to your site or set up some kind of commercial link with an existing forum or forums.

As a seller of shares my main concern would be upsetting the good vibe I have with people who currently buy off me. I have a long term backer but also sometimes sell other shares in more expensive comps. I have a few people who I can just text and I know they'll always take whatever is on offer because I always sell at 1:1. I think I could probably get a little bit more if I auctioned but I wouldn't want to risk upsetting my backers in case something ever went wrong with the auction site and I had ruined what was a well established trust.

With regards to my long term backer I'm pretty sure I'd be better off leaving him and going through the auction site. I'm on a 50/50 deal after MU which suits me just fine. I don't play very often however so I could probably sell off 50% of myself in every comp I play and avoid the MU consideration. Also I might get a mark up thus be even better off. Again though I've built a very good trust with this person and I'd never go against that for the sake of a bit of EV.

Just my personal thoughts on use of the site and why it wouldn't work for me as a recreational player.

business plan sounds like it would be in near direct competition with blonde, but without the customer loyalty.

money back guarantee sounds like it could go badly wrong, i don't know if you could get insured against this? , and a large amount of liquid cash would be needed for operating costs,

something could be said for being endorsed/ forging a partnership with blonde on the staking front, with a more complete product as a result

creating partnerships with coaching sites would also help with brand trust and effectively marketing the product to your target market, a by product would be positive word of mouth around the UK poker circuit which would be  vital to the success of your business model

before any of this could take place, extensive market research needs to take place, not just this thread

My thoughts:

The UK Poker community is pretty small and people that I would consider worthwhile staking are unlikely to use your site.

Brammer shifted a $60k package very quickly on blonde with no-one taking any fee. Why should Brammer or buyers be willing to pay to do the same thing on your site when it's not necessary. Even if Blonde stopped allowing staking or decided they too would charge (not likely to happen) these people still have enough contacts that they can sell easily via facebook etc.

What extra is your site going to have that really draws people (buyers and sellers) to use it anymore than the places they currently use to sell action.

People don't seem to find it difficult to sell as it stands. There are some terrible value things that go on blonde so I don't see why people would need to pay for something they can get free.

Chipmeup and sites that the yanks know haven't been terribly successful afaik and they are already established.

Do you have the money to invest to make your site just as well known (competition is only TonyG)  and yet more successful? Just very much doubt the effort/investment is ever going to be worth it.

It did sound cool when I first thought about it, but as a standalone business I don't think it works

I like the idea.

Maybe start out small and start up an affiliate with certain players. Offer them a good deal, in return drive trafic to your site.

If you had the reg of a big name you would have countles climbing to buy a piece.

Imagine this was in place for the one drop or something alike. How many people would all chip in there 40 quid to have a piece of a big name.

Make the site a buy only option to begin with? More of a store then an oppurtunity to sell?

Once there is enough interest and traffic then make iot open to people to sell. Maybe once they have bought a certain amount?

just a thought

I had quite a few fairly well known pros lined up to be "Team Poker Bay", where they sold all their action on the site for free. That would attract buyers because they are sickos, and they'd be OK using the site as they'd hopefully get higher markup than if they sold elsewhere.

If Bramms 60k package sold at 0.05 higher than the 1.x he sold on blonde, then that's $3k he's made by using the site. I'm sure these players wouldn't mind giving Poker Bay a few hundred bucks in commision/fees for this sort of price difference.

That of course all relys on there being plenty of liquidity in the buyers market of course so prices get high enough for pros to be interested. At the moment, it seems  it's a buyers market-  nothing doesn't sell out, somethings sell out in minutes so that suggests to me that on the whole, people would sell for higher with an auction.

That is not to say I think the business will work, I've read all the replies and I guess I agree with the general consensus that it WON'T, as sad as it makes me.

Pizzicato's whole post was very good but these are the two points you should take note of the most.

haha ok thanks!

hmm...wonder who he means...

lol

regarding the name poker bay -

it's a torrent site for poker shows

There's no issues between myself and "the poker bay". I have been in touch with people over there.

Not sure if this has been mentioned but poker bay is already in use I think

Hi Alex, I like the idea.
Im sure you would have had to have a lot of custom coding for the website for the functions you are mentioning, has the coding been completed?
Having just done few minutes of research in Google Keyword Tools, it seems Poker Staking and similar terms are Low search terms which is never great if you are looking for volume, thats not saying low volume terms can not create good returns but you can get an idea of how popular things are from this.
It is a Niche Site and you would be looking for repeat customers so thats ok too, it maybe a case of having no fees for the first year or 50% off fees to build a customer base.

You must be close to being ready to go so why not give it a year, and see what happens?
If it does not work out I am sure you will be able to sell it on any way.

Best of luck!

I agree with this if the continue costs aren't going to be much more than the stop costs. Obv only you can decide this.

Generally businesses mainly succeed because the people behind them really care and are driven to do well. Pretty much like you've done in the last 18 month with your poker career.

I think the general business idea is OK but will definitely need some tweaking and a lot of plugging on a world wide scale as the UK market probably isn't big enough.

All the best with whichever way you go.

Hi Alex, I thinks its admirable that you are so passionate about expanding your portfolio into business, It is very easy to envisage the dream when all you have to do is X Y and Z and you insta have a nice little business. Soon your receiving accollades from all around, Rob Yong is calling you up for advice on his next venture and your presented with the key to the city of Nottingham. However in reality there are so many things that someone new to any industry or business jus could not not forsee. No matter who you are, or however intelligent, and no matter how well you think you have covered all bases there will be un forseen problems, headaches, circumstances, situations and costs. I am not encouraging you to give up, but I would encourage you to seek as much advice and help as possible. If you truly believe it can work then go for it while you are young and with few commitments but I would seek help and investment from some sort of venture capitalist, knock on as many doors as possible and get as much help as poss. Didnt John Tabbattabbatti Tabatatbatbaiaii TabbyTabby tabattyboi the 1 who finished 2nd in wsope set up some sort of auction? Although diff he may be able to give ideas of set up costs, running cost, overheads etc. If you decide to do it you need to protect yourself as much as possible and for this I think getting backed is your best way. Also if you do go ahead you need to commit to it fully which again will prob means less poker. Are you really prepared to do this? And finally .... someone else mentioned it earlier but there are many other industries/opportunities that have been tried and tested that are not going to cause you as many as many headaches as this and it woud not be a bad reflection on yourself if you decided there are better and easier opportunities in which to invest. Gud luck whatever you decide

You haven't said why your site will yield higher prices for sellers than existing places that people sell like blonde and 2+2.

Blonde market is great for sellers because of the amount of recreational players and poker enthusiasts who really have no clue about staking and snap up so much stuff at bad value.

I can see the people signing up for a specific auction site being a bit more savvy about poker.

Care to give us some examples  ;whistle;  :D

also they can still do auction on blonde with similar client base, so why would they go to the site?

obviously not.

Your no fun these days  :(

I mean blonde is a great community - I've bought several pieces in people that haven't been value because they are friends, I want to help them play the event and want to funk for them. The chance of a return is a great bonus. I wouldn't pay a site a fee for that though.

I'm prolly the most clueless twat on here ,I was happy to buy a bit of mitch stato Ryan Michelle n James purely because I like them and they have good form ,plus it's a bit of interest ,I was happy with the price right or wrong ,iwas happy is the most important part to me
Would I have been happy to part with a % for a middle man ?
No is the answer
But gl Alex

The idea sounds nice in theory but always for someone else to do.

Do that many tournaments that are Hendon Mob tracked actually give full entrants lists? I know WSOP do and I think WPT but others might not? It could become hard to track if people played or not and if only a few different series give entrants lists then that limits you even more. Time consuming if it is on you to track people saying they've busted and if they've actually entered too.

Someone else as in not me... I'm sure you would be great :)

I would imagine the seller pays the fees?

Yeah this. I'm sure the system will be fine etc, don't really fancy paying rake on my action am having no trouble buying or selling action as things are. Market size you are anticipating is actually tiny

You might aswell just do it on blonde for free

Think you need to offer something blondepoker and 2+2 cannot.

Scammer insurance is something that springs to mind.

Obviously ridiculously risky and expensive though.

Maybe some sort of insurance though (ten times stake?)

way too easy for Alex to get fucked over though

Yep.

Was just thinking out loud.

Most people interested in buying/selling shares are already active and happy (ish) with what is out there already.

Need something unique to lure them to Alex's site.

If you have low volume you need a high mark up, eg not many people buy ferraris but the dealer makes a score on each one. So doesn't seem viable to take a small % fee. Maybe if you have good players on board take action as the fee as a better +ev gamble in the short term. Prob would work as a business if attached to a big existing audience like facebook or twitter as a fun interactive 1% of friends thing. Not sure about the name and think poker bay sounds like a vegas casino or harbour in aussie soap, prefer Pokerstable.com, but that was taken. Pokerstable.co.uk was available though.

Or you could keep backing winners like PJ

Which bank do you use? I'm staying clear of them!

The market is way too small. You won't make enough money out of it to make it worth setting up or your time to run it.

I know this has been touched on earlier, but pretty sure you'll have the lawyers from Ebay on your case  if you attempt to use the Pokerbay name for anything with an auction element. A quick google search turned up numerous instances of "xxxxbay" sites being hassled.

It seems to me the consensus on this site is that auctions produce poor value for buyers. Would a possible avenue to exploit this, be for you to sign up a stable of trusted "name" Pros who would be happy to be staked by you at say 1.5 average and then parcel up the action for sale to public by auction with 1.5 reserve and profit from any part sold in excess of 1.5 ?

It seems you'ld need multiple income streams to make this work, so a tie-in that drove traffic to an online site could be another consideration.

 

Is the Firm still up and running?

Alex having read through the posts,who to be fair make up a reasonable sample of you target market it has confirmed the point we spoke about several months ago that I couldn't see how this could generate the required revenues to cover the set up costs.Coupled with the implementation challenges I would see this as a money pit with little chance of becoming a sustainable business.
This is not to be negative.I admire individuals who want to make things happen.UK PLC needs far more people with a positive attitude and a spirit of enterprise.However I really don't think this has legs.
Sorry if it is not the answer you were looking for but for what's it's worth that's my opinion.
You will have other ideas,opportunities and keep them flowing.To have a 'brains trust' like this site is also really value to get a sense check on any ideas etc.Good luck.

Yea eBay is doing ok.

Thanks Ian, and everyone. A lot of very wise posts and yes, an invaluable resource so thanks to Blonde for allowing me to have this thread in the first place.

I've decided to not go through with the business and to look for other projects / keep my eyes peeled.

Thanks very much for all the advice.

Alex

TOP Post Alex.

If GAS7 thinks it's nope then it's nope!

keep the brain busy.

Well done at the weekend. 

Regards

M


 

Really disappointed to see this come to an end. Keep positive and come up with some more ideas. Lots of people on here have given you some sound advice and encouragement. For now we can just blame Keys for a shit idea :)

Alex,

I think you're close and with a few tweaks the basic idea could work. I have a fair amount of money sitting around from the poker glory days and would actually be interested in a joint venture, two heads are better than one and all that. Obviously you don't really know me from adam so I'll just put the idea out there and see what you (and other forumites) think. If you see the potential maybe you'll think working together is a good idea too.

You want a business to grow organically and preferably be at least break even pretty quickly. I don't think going for the home run is a great idea. Start out just at DTD where you have a great reputation and a lot of goodwill. Offer the idea to Rob and give him a free small stake in the company so that he has in incentive for it to succeed.

The site idea is basically the same (whether an auction format or a buy it now type deal) but specifically for DTD tournaments. You could possibly then integrate it with the DTD online site and settle payments through their infrastructure (this may be a regulatory issue however). you could even have a computer set up in the building to help people set up their accounts and maybe even use the DTD mailing list for super targeted super cheap advertising.

Obviously a lot of this idea is contingent on Rob you have a great reputation and a lot of clout and Rob should go for it because he'd have more people buying in to his tournaments and his % ownership plus it creates great atmosphere when multiplle people have a financial stake and are railing every final table, hell you could potentially even let people cash out their pokerbay accounts at DTD and then there's more money for table games and what have you. The best part is that it gets around the grimming issue because DTD has the ability to withhold the money at the cage and allocate it to the correct people and you can buy people into events directly they don't ever need to touch the money.

You simply have a flag in the DTD computer system that says player X was bought in via pokerbay (not sure I love the name) an what % of their winnings they should get and what % should go into your account to then be instantly paid to the stakers.

If it takes off then you have a success story to show to other casino groups (dtd prize pools went up by X% and here's the figures to show we drove that traffic to them) and get them to buy into the idea for their clubs and that's how you get your organic growth.

Like I say I think working with you on this would be awesome so let me know what you think, and if others on here think this is an even worse idea than the original let me know also. :)

A few more thoughts,

People were against this because it felt impersonal, people like to stake others so that they have something to sweat and can help out having it DTD centric brings back that personal element you can go to the club and see your stakee in action, you know when and where he'll be, similarly if you roll it out then john doe in Leicester or Birmingham or whatever can watch his stakee in gala. It's local but scalable.

Another problem people had was why go through you when we can just stake on blonde without a fee. The service you are providing is the guarantee that the money will be held at the cage, you can stake without any fear of your money going walkies. Also because your overheads are lower due to DTD integration you can make a profit on a much lower set of fees.

The amount of people publically selling their action for DTD tournaments is pretty pretty small you know...

Thanks very much Tom, some great ideas in there. I'll be in touch, but realistically not until I get back from Colombia which is end of august.

Currently yes but it's a market you have to create. You need the dedicated poker stakers to get the site off the ground and that's where alexs rep comes in but ultimately you want to embrace the punter stakee. Be like betfair, they are loved by the sharps because they have great lines but those lines are so great because it's the punters who pay the price. The guys who don't mind taking the worst of it for a few % and for small figures if it gives them one more guy to rail another sweat to get them excited. The idea will only succeed above basically covering it's costs if it creates a new type of stakee someone who plays poker occasionally and finds one more way to get some good action. They're just looking for a reason to stick around after they bust and what better way than by having a piece of someone on a deep run. I really don't think that's out of the realms of possibility. Once you have that pool of money it'll create it's own demand even if it's people looking for a simple 1:1 (after fees) stake. Getting sellers is no problems at all the problem is finding enough people willing to take a punt for a bit of a sweat and where better to look than an established casino?  

Edit: It's actually better than the betfair model because betfair is by definition a negative sum environment it's every penny they take in fees has to come from a depositor so they have to drum up a continual stream of losing players. In a staking site potentially there could be more money being paid out than is deposited and still room for profit, there should be in fact if the horses are worth more than 1:1. The shortfall is made up by the extra prize money won.

Looking outside the blondepoker box, most of my friends dont use forums, but gamble and play poker. This is your target market. I would use a site like this (probably more to stake than be staked). I obv cant through blonde at present. Im pretty sure a lot of my friends would.

"Edit: It's actually better than the betfair model because betfair is by definition a negative sum environment it's every penny they take in fees has to come from a depositor so they have to drum up a continual stream of losing players. In a staking site potentially there could be more money being paid out than is deposited and still room for profit, there should be in fact if the horses are worth more than 1:1. The shortfall is made up by the extra prize money won. "

This would be true, but falls over once I consider that I have never met a poker player who doesn't think he has a 25%+ edge on the field.

The simple fact is that poker tournaments are by definition a negative sum environment because of rake.  Having every player claim they are worth 1.5 doesn't change that.

Yeah don't give up, the good news is www.pokerstable.co.uk is now available at a very reasonable rate through mantis holdings plc

I'll give you my idea for free and you can add it to your fledgling business if you like it.

It is to allow the people to punt between each other in a betfair bet matching style on various tournament markets.

E.g. last longers, best peak position and loads of others i thought up

The idea was to do it on online tournaments as you could obtain completed lists of tournament finish positions and breakdowns and automate the payout process.

This stops the grimming potential and allows people to bet with anyone, quickly.

E.g. every tournament that revolves through a poker site lobby is also available in your site and x person can post a last longer bet of $100 in a particular tournament open to anyone or to specific set of players if they are registered on the site. People can take all or part of that $100 and then based on everyones finish position they software will payout the appropriate funds minus your commision.

You can extend it to live tournaments where every finish position is documented but you prob can't get enough data to do it effectively.

I once spec'd all this out in great detail, wrote the scripts, did the design look etc, then i worked out the amount of work involved and the potential profit but it just didn't add up, but part of a bigger operation it could work.

Could give you a step in the online poker rooms if you make it good, the holy grail would be to let people bet out of their poker balances and have a link in the lobby but then the sites would obviously want a fat cut.

also did a lot of work on a similar project.

great minds

Some classic human nature ITT. When you were gonna do it, everyone thought it was a terrible idea. Once you've said you aren't gonna do it any more, every post is in favour.

I completely missed his post saying he is shelving the idea.

I was under the impression that you'd already invested money in the software and website and that it was pretty much ready to go.

If this is the case why not just launch it but have it as a free service with no guarantees just for your friends or other people you know to use? Don;t even handle any money, just let them use it for their auctions.

Maybe you could allow other people to use the service but on the strict understanding that there are no guarantees.

If it tests ok maybe you could look in to making it commercial. You could possibly ask for a token payment if any particular stake goes well. Call it a donation to keep the site up and running.

Seems a shame to totally shelve it if you've already invested enough to get something out there.

Obviously if it's nowhere near ready then none of this applies.

Still think its a terrible idea imo...

Even being intergrated into DTD etc just isnt gonna make enough $ to recoup development costs unless those costs have already been 90%+ covered already and would otherwise be completely written off and in that case it may be close but once you add in the time spent moderating/maintaining and so on its still gonna be a net loser vs working at mcdonalds or something...

Like ACE2M's idea but you would need some staggering volume to make it a money spinner. Develop and sell on could work.

I must confess I don't think it's a good idea and haven't from the start. I was trying to trick you into buying my pokerstable website by hyping up the idea and being all positive. I thought a bit of sharp shuffle and razzle dazzle would get you paying top dollar for this sophisticated (and still available) website. But it was a scam all along and sadly I always thought the idea was bad. I am sorry about the joke but my original advice was serious at least. Just didn't want you thinking my last posts were in the classic human nature bracket. The very idea.