How to play games for profit, I once made £21,000 doing it.

Project: Skill

I would like to introduce you to my latest mini online scheme aka “project: skill”. In this one, my aim is to obtain enough funds to be able to upgrade this computer to something rather swanky!. I am going to do this through something called “online skill gaming”. You will be able to find updates to this project right here on this blog, just click the tag links down on the bottom left of the page to find all posts relating to it.

Online skill gaming

The basics of online skill gaming go a little like this; You create an account on a skill gaming website. Send some money to them that then gets credited to your account, for me this was around £10 at first. Then that money is used to buy entry into tournaments to compete against other players for a share in a prize fund. Your position in the tournament is down to how well you perform at the games, usually based on highest score you achieve. The players with the highest scores gets the biggest share of the prize fund. Different website that offer skill games operate tournaments in different ways, like how many how the prize fund is split and closing conditions of tournaments. As a rule of thumb, the better you play the greater the chance of winning something.

To ensure that the pro-players don't always ruin the fun of the newbies, all the sites operate a skill ranking system. The more you win, the higher your rank goes. Then its used as a criteria to see if you can enter certain tournaments. The whole point of this is to stop the sharks from eating all the little fishes alive.

A little history

Before I fill you in on any more details, I would like to share a little of my own history with you. About 4 years (or it could be 5 now), I was into this in a big way. In around 18 months I managed to win myself close to £21,000 by just playing these online games. Being quite adapt at certain games I was able to win at more often then not, putting myself in the money most of the times. It however all came to a end, and that was down to a number of reasons.

• The American “credit card ban”
  I don't remember when it happened, but sometime before 2006 the USA ended up banning (or at the very least legislating against the use of) credit cards to “gamble with online”. This had a dramatic effect on some skill gaming websites as most their player base was from the states. Less people to compete against means that some tournaments take longer to finish and other progressive style tournament never reach the dizzy heights they once did before. Some great websites shut up shop all together and others turned into a shadow of their former selves.

• Websites started to spreading the prize fund
  Once upon a time, there used to a website that only split £1,000 between the top three players. As I recall, the tournament ran for a month and the prize fund was split was £500 first place, £350 for second and £150 was third. Now this was not the only website that awarded greater prizes to the winners at the time.
  
  Then the websites providing these tournament learnt that providing massive prizes for a few people was not the best the way to conduct there business. Instead you could keep people playing and spending there money if they felt they could win something, this was done by shifting the spread of prizes from a few people to a larger number of people. Of course spreading the prize across more people means that there was less money for the 1st place in competitions. So the big prizes that used to be quite common have faded out of existence now.

• Obtaining too high a skill ranking
  When you play these games and you keep on winning, your skill ranking for that game increases. When this happens a number of things happen. As you get bumped up the skill ladder, you end up competing with players of greater skill making it harder to win games. As most the people out there are weak skilled players, you find that there are fewer and fewer players to compete against the higher you go. The less people there are, the longer it takes for tournaments to finish and smaller the prize fund tend to be.
  Once you make it the the top of the skill ladders you tend to find yourselves pseudo barred from playing any more. Let me clarify this; at the top there are a lot less players. As people get to the top and see how empty it is, they just stop playing. Without losing you skill ranking, you have no one to play. Because there are a lot less people playing, tournaments take too long to complete and those progressive style jackpots that you weaned yourself on before are just not worth your time.
  

All in all, when the above happened to my world of online skill gaming, I ended up spending far to much time to win next to nothing. In the end, it worked out I wasn't even earning minimum wage for the hours of gaming I was putting in.
When it was good, it was great!. I was able to win a shed load of £500 prizes, and on more then one occasion I received a £3,000 cheque. Those morning's, opening the mail was such fun. With the cash I won, I was able to take a great trip to American with the girlfriend, buy myself a two sport cars, get a laptop, upgrade my computer and have all sorts of other fun (beer!).

The great comeback

The reasons why I have returned to the world of online skill gaming is because I know I am still a very good player at some games, probably one of the top thousand great players in the world at some of games, if not the in the top hundredth!. The online skill gaming world has matured a fair amount since my last adventure into it.

• New games.
  These websites are always trying to improve themselves, one part of this is adding new games!. With new games comes new people to beat and new tournaments to win.

• More people.
  As time has passed, more and more people have found their way into the world of online skill gaming.

Soccer mums

The demography of the people (main people) who play these games is something dubbed the “soccer mum”. Soccer mums are female, they are the stay at home parent of school children, who have plenty of spare time and disposable income. They seek thrills and entertainment online and are willing to pay for it. These are the exact same people who love to play online bingo and buy casual games. This explains why a large selection of the games that you can see are easy to learn, quick to play and women friendly (no killing or maiming of people and filled with flowers, gems and sparkles).
The lower ranks of most games you will find that they are filled with these types of players. If your capable of playing any of the games to a half decent standard, then I am sure you could make a small killing on the above players alone!. Of course, in the upper ranks you will start to find the pro-players who play for profit, like me!.

Places to play

Does this sound like something you want to have a go at yourselves?, if so please read on. I shall tell you what websites to play, what to expect and also what websites have a bad reputation. I shall also tell you of some other internet resources that will help you improve your game. First off I shall list the great websites!.

• WorldWinner
  Founded in 1999 this USA based website boasts one of the largest user bases of these types of sites. Please note that if you play on this site from outside of the states you will incur a 30% tax on your winnings. That aside, there are plenty of people to play at all levels with lots of tournaments. From what I can tell there are no progressive style tournaments, instead they are all tend to be of a fixed jackpot size. With plenty of different games, this is one of the top two skill gaming websites about.

• King
  With more then 80 million games played, this UK based website is another of the top two available. Previously called midasplay.com (hence why you see payments form them on my pay pal screen shot), they offer a growing selection of games with some the same as WorldWinner. This site might cost a little more to enter tournaments, however that is offset by the bigger prizes you can win.
  Account tip: Now if you wish to play on this site, you could consider joining rpoints cash back site, as they offer 900 rpoints (approx £9) for opening a paying account through them.

• GameDuell
  This is a growing German site that I am having a lot of fun on. Not quite the selection of games on offer from the other sites, nor the user base of players. Still enough people to play against to turn a profit!.
  Account tip: If you create an account via topcashback, you can obtain £15 for signing up a paying account and another 30p for the lead!. In other words you can get them to pay you to have a go!!

• GameAccount
  This used to be one of the greatest till the American credit card ban hit. Since then its fallen a bit by the way side and really only offers head to head multi player style skill games. If this is your cup of tea, then I am sure you could get a few quid out of them!.
  Account tip: rpoints cash back offer 1000 rpoints (approx £10) for creating a paying account through them. If you deposit £10 you can get to play for free more or less!.

• DukesBox
  Currently one of the smallest percent taken to host the tournaments meaning more money in the prize fund. Reports say this is shaping up to be an awesome site. You don't even need to to sign up for an account to practice play. Still waiting for an official launch, one to keep an eye on.

• uVme
  Rather new, takes a high percent of the rake for playing and because of that is not as popular as other sites. At the time of writing this, you can't help but feel like you stand to lose more then you can gain by playing. But saying that, if your winning does it really matter?. Play this until you reach the limit of your skill, don't take chances and bail out at the top of your game to profit!.

• Games N' Roses
  New kid on the block and based in France I believe. Early reports this one is well worth a look.

• SkillGround
  This is a skill game site with a difference, rather than the usual casual games you can find bigger traditional style games to compete in. I myself have not played here yet, but it is something I will be doing when I have some spare time. It is also another USA based website, so I presume you will be paying tax on those winnings if you play from outside of the states.

• Skill7
  One I have not played on yet, so cant really say a lot about (when you get there and the sites not in your language, look for the flag symbol to change it to one you can read!)

• TournamentGames
  Another site I have yet to try, they say that they are the longest running skill gaming site on the internet (since 1997).

I will place all these above links down on the menu bar on the left hand side, so you can find them at any time.

Bad eggs

As is the case with many things, there are always some bad eggs amongst the good. In my experience and what others have reported, these are sites that can only be recommended to stay away from.

• GameBonus
  When I played on this site, won and tried to withdraw it, I never received it. So with that in mind, don't even bother giving this site the time of day. Trying to contact them only ever results in failure. I am not the only one either, there are forums out there that show the same things has happened to others.

• OrangeShark
  To quote a well respected skill player; "ORANGE SHARK IS BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!! don't sign up at that place. they take all your money and DONT allow you to make withdrawals at all. DONT GO TO ORANGE SHARK!! -.- "

Some useful resources

On the internet there are some great resources for making the most of online skill gaming. The very first thing you should do is read the rules for the game your playing. Even if you have played the same game on other sites, they can and do change how scores are generated on there own versions (for example 'Bejewled 2' on king and worldwinner score differently). As some wise person once said: the devil is in the detail!.

• YouTube
  If you search by the name of the website or game your playing, more than likely you can find a video or two of other people playing it. By watching others how they play it you can pick some tips up on how to play yourselves.

• CashGamers
  This place has a great forum with many active skill players (me included), you can find all sorts of great information here. Well worth a read if you want to take this sort of thing seriously.

• Afort's gaming blog
  Long time skill gamers blog, worth a read.

• Anq159's gaming blog
  Another long time skill gamer. Check out his prize winnings!

• PopCap
  A lot of the games that turn up on these skill gaming sites can be found here. You can often get a lot of practice in before they go live. Ideal for getting a head start on your enemy's.

• PayPal
  You are going to need one of these accounts, makes life easier when you want to be paid.

Is it gambling?

This is a little tricky to answer, at the moment it sits in that gray area between two scenes. In my mind its 50% gambling and 50% fair competing. For a better understanding of this question, check out wikipedia here.
The laws aimed at gambling don't seem to apply to this these sites at the moment (well not in my experience). You can presume that at some time in the future, the governments of the world will address that.

The story so far

Project: skill, its already been running for about a month now and so far my total stands at £281 paid to me via pay pal. With another £240 in my online gaming accounts (across a number of sites) and another £145 in transit (being withdrawn into my pay pal account). Not bad for a few weeks work, eh?!. Want some evidence of this?, well have a quick look at this screen grab from my pay pal account.

Its only taken me a hour or two a day to get to that amount and with a bit more practice I should be able to make that balance grow even bigger.
As I don't know how much I will need to upgrade this computer to something special, I have not set myself a target to reach yet. Once I eye up what's available, I will set myself a target and keep you all informed as to how close I am.

The end

If you plan to play for profit and know your limits and abilities, you should be able to turn some small change into a major windfall.

After wasting all your time with this giant wall of text above, I hope you can summon up the strength to leave me a comment wishing me luck on my new project!.