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Comment by scottcanoni | Hacker News Reader

In case you were curious how they make money, here is BitBookie's answer:

"It's too early to monetize, but when we do, it will probably be through ads or affiliate programs.

I think that not charging a house take will have a positive effect on the quality of the site. Most sites do have a house take and that creates an incentive for them to be very pushy about driving bets. It's annoying and distracting. It's like being in a real casino!"

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Aren't ads and affiliate programs hard to make money on unless one i very pushy with them?

I'd expect making money via a house take would require much less pushiness, because that involves making money off of something that people are coming to the site to do (gamble).

With ads, one is making money off of something no one is coming to the site for.

I used to have an online gambling website, and it is very lucrative to be a publisher. Mainly bc the model is different than traditional affiliate programs. The typical mode is that if you drive someone to sign up, you get a flat amount ($50-150) and a percentage of that users' LIFETIME input into the website (typically 8-10%)

From what I understand about people who gamble online is that they move around a lot due to signup offers and other such stuff, so if they are advertising offers on the website I reckon it wouldn't be to hard to make money. Don't take this as fact though, just what I know from friends who are gamblers.

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