Poker Website Costs This article is intended for people who are thinking about launching a website about poker but have almost no knowledge about the subject. Specifically, this page covers the costs of owning, launching, and operating a website about poker.

I don't know what it costs to actually run an online cardroom, although I think it's beyond the means of most of us. It's illegal in the USA to run an online gambling operation anyway. But the costs of running a poker information site, or a portal, are actually pretty minimal.

Free Options

Someone could build a branded, popular, moneymaking poker website without spending any money on it at all if they wanted to. This might not be the best solution for everyone, but if you literally have no money for a domain name or hosting, consider this. I can think of 1 example of a poker website that is on a free host and a free domain that makes plenty of money, and that's Iggy's poker blog.

Making money the way Iggy did it with that blog isn't the easiest route to poker riches. He wrote massive amounts of poker content to get to the level of achievement he's reached. And he has networked with other poker bloggers for years. His reputation for entertaining and thoughtful poker content are what made him successful.

That's not money for nothing, even though it didn't cost anything to put that site up on blogspot. That's money in exchange for hours and hours of hard work. Way to go, Iggy.

Better Options That Are Still Cheap

Domains

You can register a domain name at Godaddy for as little as $1.99. That's not expensive. Registering a domain for 5 years or 10 years might be worth the extra cost, since there is a possibility that length of registration affects a site's perceived reputation in Google. (A site that's registered for a year is more likely to be spammy than a site that's registered for 10 years.) Even then, you're looking at a total of $100 on registering a domain.

You don't need a perfect domain either. In fact, you won't be able to just go register a great poker domain, because they've been picked over pretty thoroughly. But I know of at least one poker webmaster who just decided to register something offbeat and put his poker site there. (Firbolg)

Hosting

You'll need a web host too. There are free options for hosting, even if you have your own domain, but they suck because you have advertising on your site in exchange for the free hosting. Keeping your advertising revenue instead of trading it for web hosting is a profitable move. I've seen hosting as cheap as $3.99/month, and I'm sure I could find even cheaper hosting if I looked for it.

Web Design Software

I use Frontpage. That software is now discontinued, but I still use it. It's a WYSIWIG websit editor, which means what you see is what you get. Frontpage is like using a word processing program to design your web pages. There are free html editors available online, and you can even use Blogger or Wordpress to design your website.

I have a friend who still designs sites by writing raw html in Notepad. His sites do great in the search engines too.

So this piece of the puzzle doesn't have to cost anything, but it can cost $299 or so for software like Expression Web or Dreamweaver.

Bottom Line

If you want to run a poker website, and you're concerned about the costs, get over it. As long as you have access to a computer with Internet access, you can operate a poker website. And if you have even a little bit of money to invest, like $500 or $1000, you can run a really 1st class poker operation.

The trick is to remember that the content is what really matters, not the design. Of course you want a website that's easily navigated and pleasing to look at, but you don't need to spend $1000's on fancy bells and whistles that will probably just screw up your SEO anyway.