Starting a Sportsbetting Site

[poker69]

So I am starting a sportsbetting site and it is my first one. For those of you who are into the sportsbetting sites I have a few quick questions:

How tough is the competition for the SERPs compared to Poker?

Is the US market a good area to focus on sportsbetting or is it mainly out of North America?

Any tips in general when starting up a smaller sportsbetting site?

Thanks for the help

[Greg]

I have seen a few start up sports sites do very well; however you need to remember to pick a niche just like you do for any other affiliate portals.
I'd pick North American sports and choose a book that takes US players (obviously). Giving away free picks is good and also advertising the odds on your poker portals might not be too bad at first either.

[mjmurphy53711]

Are there feeds that display those odds?

[Greg]

I have seen some of them before like at Nine.com; I am sure that other sites have them as well if you ask.

[themike537]

I'm pretty sure Bodog does that as well - I know they do for horse racing at least.

[Fintan]

Originally Posted by mjmurphy53711

Are there feeds that display those odds?

Nearly all sportsbook sites will provide XML feeds with live odds if you ask nicely

[Greg]

I just posted a thread on using casino and jackpot feeds. I really think it's vital if you run a sportsbetting site or forum to have the new lines scrolling somewhere on the site. It's a great start for a new topic if you're stuck as well!

[PokerProp]

Originally Posted by poker69

How tough is the competition for the SERPs compared to Poker?

Less competition obviously, but the high ranking sites have also been around many years longer in the sports industry. Still plenty of room. For information on games, free picks, predictions, sports stats etc the search volume is amazing - plenty of ways to get traffic.

Originally Posted by poker69

Is the US market a good area to focus on sportsbetting or is it mainly out of North America?

Depends on the type of site your running. For the US I think the smart strategy would be to market two or three sites as an affiliate, build lots of sports traffic using any group of: forum, free picks, game coverage, sports betting tools etc. When your site is established sell advertising on it rather than affiliating. Many of the best sportsbooks for Americans don't run their affiliate programs well (or don't have affiliate programs at all) because they prefer not to pay affiliates.

I'd start off with something like Bodog, Bookmaker, 5dimes and Skybook (Skybook I'd move in and out of featured: Football - Basketball season there worth it. There not worth promoting much beyond that.

I'd look to try and sell advertising to WSEX/Matchbook in the future.

Outside the US market is so much better for an affiliate. though you can make money with either.

Originally Posted by poker69

Any tips in general when starting up a smaller sportsbetting site?

Most people don't click affiliate links to sportsbooks - so build something that you can change to the advertising based model in the future.

[PokerProp]

Will cost a few links but they offer line feeds where you can add your own affiliate accounts:
http://www.sbrtools.com/

[ThePokerBank]

Really great post Prop. I've already learned a lot about sportsbooks from you just from reading posts like those, so thanks.

About the affiliate links though, could you get away with an innocent looking redirect like mysite.com/go/sportsbook/ ?

These look a lot sweeter, and so maybe they wouldn't be too concerned about clicking through. After you get that clickthrough, they've got that cookie, and so even if they type in sportsbook.com a few days later, that player will still be yours.

Also, how come sportsbook visitors are more reluctant to click through affiliate links?