Starting a local campaign in Ireland

[John D]

Hey,
Getting some help from someone with experience in this but it's always a good idea to get as much help as possible.

I am running a local campaign for poker in Ireland and I am planning on putting a lot into it.
The thing is, I think a lot of people will be doing play money only, so how do I profit from them?

Anyone made a good profit from offline campaigns if you think a lot will only be doing play money?

[tomysole]

If your doing offline campaigns then make fliers and cd's with the Partypoker million incentive bonus. The people will want the free tourney entry and will deposit the cash to get the bonus thinking they will just withdraw it asap! Little do they know that they will probably play alot of poker with that money and keep depositing.

[deepak7]

I'm in Europe too... and even worse, Eastern Europe.

Draculas country more exactly.

Here, 5 card draw was known better than hold'em, slowly things change.
I have the same problem as you, few play on real money... mostly learn or play only freerolls (and withdraw!!! :lol: ). Well, its a poor country.

What I did?
I made an online league with special prizes/tourney and at the end... bounties too.
Looking at poker analysis and flopturnriver I see that I had bigger prizes.
Thats stupid, I expected more people. So if others don't reinvest money I did too much.

Also I arranged with a big casino a low 50$+10$ buy in and I made an online satellite for 5$+0.5$.

:lol:
So you could do the same... make some low buy-ins with special prizes (poker chips, good poker books... Harrington's... isn't he irish?).

I'm making another league season but I would like to know too other ways for making them deposit/play more. The good thing is I won't have a competitor, my site will be #1 next years (non english site). I'm optimistic I guess, I opened the site on 1st of june. Not too optimistic, I can't live by promoting poker, thats sure. At least for now.

[John D]

Hey,
Seems like you are a similar situation as me.
What type of contests could you hold that would get people to put money into their account and also give a good competitive contest between locals?

Something that would really get them involved and stick at it.

Seems like you are on the right track. I think getting started in somewhere that people mightn't be playing real money is a big obstacle to get over.

Any other tips on what you did at first that worked?

[deepak7]

For me its easier in a way.

There is no casino here that has NL holdem... only holdem limit, stud, caribbean.
So I organized a live tourney...

Also my poker info site is the first important site here.

My league had 2 freerolls and 4 buy-ins. There were bounties, many poker books... even some WPT season 2 dvds, poker chips. Not more than 30 ppl on a tourney but they like the quality of play and the fact that there is no foreigner registered.

One problem I found already: after people get more experienced they want better offers (bonuses, rake back) and won't use my links all the time.