Niche Website help.

[fish1986]

I am looking to develop a poker room online. I am very specific in what i am doing. Poker rooms have all different games and tournaments. I will be focusing on a tournament i believe will be fantastic and become very popular. My site will be for Texas Hold'em only. This tournament will give players a better chance of winning higher prizes for the same deposits. I have everything from domain name right through to marketing materials. I need the help now to design the website. My designer pulled out at the last minute and am finding it hard to replace him.

I look forward to your responses.

[glencooley.com]

What system are you using for the actual Games Jase?

[fish1986]

I'm not. I need someone to design a site and incorporate the poker software into the site.

[glencooley.com]

Do what poker software are you using?

[glencooley.com]

This would also need to be hosted off shore as well dont forget.

[fish1986]

I need help to find the software. Basically, i know everything i am doing apart from the website itself. I hired a web designer who said he could get software and design it etc and then he pulled out. I dont know where to get the software from?

So i need help on which software to use and then to incorporate the software into a website design. I have no knowledge of any of this. Sorry to be brief but i dont know much about websites and the actual software.

Where is the best place to find poker software?

Thanks

[glencooley.com]

Dude you want to set up a website to make money from poker? You need to research this a little better. Have you looked at all the sites that offer this already like pokerstars.co.uk/com, 888 etc.

You will see that they have free rooms, limited rooms and no limits rooms. The other thing they has is HUGE membership bases and HUGH marketing budgets.

Even to the amatuer poker player these are better as you can practice play for free.

As for tournaments I am pretty sure the top five poker sites all hold qualifying for the WPT which is about as big as it gets.

Most of these sites offer software or affiliate schemes so go have a look at them.

[fish1986]

Yes... There are many fantastic poker rooms out there, great marketing and budgets etc. I use a couple of them myself and find them great. I have, however found a gap in the market that NONE of these 'huge' poker rooms have exploited. I have researched this gap and done market research to see if people would benefit. I admit, i have not researched the software and website design etc, as i have no idea about this area, thats why i hired a web developer to do this for me. I left it all to him and now he has let me down.

I dont mean to be rude...but dont tell me i have not researched this properly, as i have...i just know nothing about the website/software side of things!

Is there anyone else out there who is willing to talk to me about this project? I have roughly £16k as a budget for the actual design and integration of the site including software, and then a seperate budget for the marketing. I want the site as easy to navigate as possible.

Thanks

[PointandStare]

Don't mean to rain on your parade but 16k will just about get your site up and running.

Have you considered the finance for important things like:
Gaming Licenses
Company expenses - office, phone, registration, VAT, TAX, staffing costs

Let alone your own personal tax, wages etc.

[downsouth]

I think theres a reason why theres a gap in the market, its cos the big poker sites wont make any money from it. Investment v return just dont add up for them

These guys have serious amounts of cash to spend on the people to run the backend operation and the software would not be found from an off the shelf product

Have you thought about the security of the site, server, customer details, financial transactions, backups, restores, DR, maintenance, availability etc.

Your gonna need a serious serious amount of cash to get this one off the ground

[fish1986]

Oh my days!

I'm not just gonna throw £16k at something i have not researched! I thought this forum was supposed to be good for advice?

Not offence... but i have come on here looking for someone to help me design the website. I have explained that i have a budget of £16k for the website design! That means that the £16k is the budget for the WEBSITE DESIGN only. I have taken everything else into account and have seperate budgets for these but have not disclosed them here as i only need help with the website design. I dont know why people are telling me i need money for this and money for that?!?!?

So your not 'raining on my parade'...i said that i had £16k for the design and you confirmed that will get the site up and running. Don't see the problem. I'm sorry if i'm abit blunt but i hate comments like that. Of course ive looked at Gaming licences, thats the first thing i did.

[PointandStare]

Apologises fish but this month I must have heard more "i want to start a gaming/ gambling/ poker site" than the usual "i want to start a facebook/ youtube/ social network clone" dreams.
My mistake for lumping you in with the others!

That said, it's not something I would like my company to be associated with.
I hope you succeed in your quest and please do prove us wrong when you launch.

[An Oasis]

I think the comments posted are all valid. I too must be missing how the big boys in this arena will not jump on your niche (when successful) and just incorporate it into their own sites?