Have you ever needed to make some stripes for a background - either for your website or some banners etc? You might want to check out Stripe Generator 2.0 it’s got to be the simplest way to design stripes that I’ve ever seen.

Everything is web based, using responsive AJAX controls and let’s you customize your stripes in virtually every way imaginable. Choose the colors you want for each stripe and the background, set the width, spacing and amount of shadow, whether you want any gradients, the orientation of the stripes… it really couldn’t be easier.

Any stripes that don’t use a gradient will tile across any size background - if you use a gradient, you’ll get some really funky designs, but depending on the height you make them, you’ll only be able to tile seamlessly horizontally.

One of those handy websites to put in the back of your mind for when you need it…

Just launched this month is Red Returns, the affiliate program associated with Red Flush Casino, a Microgaming based site that is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.

Red Returns has a fairly standard (but very good) affiliate payment structure, lifetime revenue share starting at 25% for casino net revenue up to $15,000/m and capping at 35% for net revenue above $30,000/m.

Unlike most affiliate programs, these guys actually approve all new registrations, so it may be a few hours before you can log in and grab your tracking codes (they say this takes up to 24hrs, as of right now, I signed up about 19 hours ago and still waiting for approval… hmmm… hopefully soon).

Go and check them out… hopefully you’ll get approved a little quicker than me

You’ve probably noticed the EntreCard ad in the sidebar of this site - it actually serves a couple of purposes and in my opinion is a great option to include on a new blog.

EntreCard is basically a banner exchange program for bloggers, anyone in the EntreCard system can purchase an ad on another participating blog using EntreCard Credits (EC’s). You earn EC’s by visiting other blogs and ‘dropping’ your card, or by having other people drop their cards on your blog.

It’s not going to get you a flood of targeted visitors, but it does create a few opportunities - here’s my take on the benefits of EntreCard:

1. You get instant visitors. Depending on how much time you have to put into dropping EntreCards, you could easily get 30+ new visitors per day (more if you devote a lot of time to EntreCard). A word of caution though, I said visitors and not readers for a reason - many just drop their card and move on, but you will get a few that read your posts and comment… which brings me to my next point,
2. You get to network with other bloggers. As you visit other blogs with the EntreCard widget, take the time to comment on any post that interests you. If you regularly drop your cards on that blog, or even just bring EntreCard up in the comments, you’ve got an immediate connection with that blogger that you can later develop further.
3. You can use the EntreCard system to get links back to your blog. This can be done either directly - offering free EntreCard credits for bloggers who link to you, or indirectly from bloggers who highlight the most active droppers on their site.

Overall, EntreCard is an excellent way for new blogs to get active… you’ll get extra comments, incoming links and start some excellent conversations with other bloggers - all key elements of successful blogging in any market.

So what are you waiting for? Go join up, drop your card on the widget in my sidebar and leave a comment here introducing yourself… EntreCard is a great way to get social, make the most of it, don’t just drop and run.

I spruced up the affiliate networking website yesterday, using the Evolution theme from Blogging Tips - what do you think?

So far it seems to be working pretty well, I plan on moving it onto Gamblz.com in the next couple of days - if you see any bugs that I need to fix, let me know, I have tweaked it a little.

Wordpress bloggers are blessed by having so many quality free theme templates to choose from, getting a nice look for your blog that looks professional and portrays the look you want are an important decision that you need to make… what sort of theme do you use on your blog?

Did you know that you can earn money from your favorite online casino and poker rooms, without risking any of your own money?

It’s called affiliate marketing and it works by earning you money whenever people you refer (usually via a link on your website) generate income for the merchant.

Affiliate Programs aren’t just restricted to the online gambling industry, you can find affiliate programs for just about anything that is sold online, Amazon were one of the first merchants to make use of affiliate marketing and still run one of the most well known affiliate programs today.

Unlike more traditional industries (which give you typically 10-15% of what your referred customers buy), casino affiliate programs give you a percentage (usually 25%+) of what players you referr lose… you know all those bright shiny lights that line the Las Vegas strip? they’re all funded by money people have lost at those casinos - I shouldn’t need to convince you that earning 25% of everyone’s losses is going to earn you more than 15% of a few $20 books. Poker affiliate programs operate in a similar fashion, except that your cut isn’t based on the money players lose, but the amount of rakes generated while they are sitting at the tables… so the more active players you can bring in, the better.

Different affiliate programs offer you different tools for promoting them - at the basic level, each program will provide you with an affiliate tracking tag. This tracking tag is a url to their website that tells their affiliate software that the person visiting the site has been referred by you. They can then track this visitor through the download process, to account creation and permanently tag that player with your affiliate code. Whenever a player makes a deposit, or wins some money, the affiliate software knows about it and knows where that player was referred from.

Practically all affiliate programs provide graphical banners in a range of sizes that you can use to promote their site, some programs make it really easy to promote them by offering you a few more options. The Full Tilt Poker Affiliate Program for example provide javascript widgets that can easily be copied into any website that show dynamically changing content such as news, poker trivia, poker tips, their tournament schedule, current promotions etc. and every link in their widget points back to their website with your affiliate tracking code already embedded, ready to track.

Here are a few terms that you might come across when looking at affiliate programs.

• Revenue ShareA revenue share is the type of offer I described above, where you get a % of sales made to the customers you refer. A typical revenue share for gambling affiliate programs starts at 25% and may go as high as 35-40% for top affiliates.

• Cost per Acquisition (CPA)A CPA deal gives you a flat fee for each customer you refer who meet an agreed minimum threshold. For casino affiliate programs, CPA deals typically offer up to $150 per new depositing player, while poker affiliate programs usually offer around $75-$90 for new players who have deposited and earned a minimum number of loyalty points.CPA deals give you a higher amount earlier, but as they are usually only one-time payments, the revenue share options are usually more profitable over time. Personally, I would never take a CPA deal for a casino affiliate program, but I don’t mind them so much for poker affiliate programs.

• 2nd TierSome affiliate programs also make a 2nd tier payment. If you refer someone who signs up for the affiliate program, then that affiliate becomes a part of your earnings chain and your 2nd tier payment is a percentage of the commissions the affiliates under you earn.2nd Tier payments aren’t typically all that large, but every little bit helps, and if you refer a lot of affiliates then this component of your commission could become a significant part of your monthly earnings.

Here are some Affiliate Programs to get you started

The best way to explain affiliate programs is for you to signup for one and start using it. You don’t even need your own website as you can submit content directly to Gamblz and include your own affiliate tracking tags there.

Here are two programs I use, both have 2nd Tier payments… so sign up under one of these links and it’ll be in my best interest to help you succeed as they’ll send me a few % of what you earn as a bonus (2nd tier payments don’t come out of your earnings btw, they are additional payments to the referring affiliate based on what you earn that month).

• Full Tilt Poker Affiliate Program
• Star Partner Affiliate Program (formally Vegas Partner and Golden Star)

Good luck, and if you need more advice, keep an eye on this site, there’s plenty more to come… but the best thing you can do is get started - affiliate programming is a numbers game, the more players you refer, the more you’ll earn, so the quicker you can get a start on it the better.

If you’ve got the urge to start blogging then there are several great ways for you to get up and running that are absolutely free and require no (or very little) technical knowledge. By the time you finish reading this article you can have your very own blog up and running in less than 10 minutes, without spending a cent.

Here are four ways that you can start blogging for free right now:

Wordpress.com

Wordpress is probably the most full-featured blogging software available and is the #1 choice for most serious bloggers.

You have a couple of different options for using Wordpress - the best way is to register your own domain and setup Wordpress independently on your site, and although the costs involved aren’t exactly high (it’ll cost you about $8 for a domain and about $5/m to host your blog) this article is about blogging for free, so I’m not going to go into that further. Your other option is to create a free account and host your blog at Wordpress.com

All you need to get started is an email address and a name… got those? right - you can post as much as you want, as often as you want and generally have a great time doing it. You get to choose what theme you want (there are heaps available) and can even make it a private ‘members only’ blog if you wish.

Wordpress has a great community to help you get started if there’s anything you don’t understand… as far as free blogging options go, you can’t go too far wrong with Wordpress.

Blogger.com

Blogger is probably the biggest of the free hosts - they were one of the first mainstream blogging platforms and are owned by Google, so you know their reach is going to be huge.

Similar to the free options you have at Wordpress.com, Blogger offers you a quick and easy way to get started for free, no technical know-how required… create an account -> select a name -> choose a theme -> start blogging.

Gamblz

You can blog right here at Gamblz!

Do you have something to say that would fit in nicely on either Gamblz.com or Affiliate.Gamblz.com? It could be anything from game/book/movie/gadget reviews to blogging tips, affiliate marketing help, social networking tips… just about anything on those subjects are fair game.

You get full credit for your post, can add your own affiliate tracking tags (so you can make money from your post) and get the opportunity to build up your status within the Gamblz community.

Go to our submissions site for more details on how to submit your content to Gamblz.

MicroBlogging

Does running a full-scale blog sound like too much hard work? Maybe Microblogging is for you?

Microblogging is basically what it sounds like… blogging on a micro level - that can mean just about whatever you want it to. Twitter, Tumblr, Plurk are all great options for you to get started… keep those updates short and frequent - and don’t forget to interact with your followers… blogging is all about creating and participating in conversations, microblogging helps make it that much more immediate - make the most of it.

what are you waiting for - start blogging!

What’s your favorite free blogging tool? Share them with us in the comments.

(Photo by antigone78)

One of our aims here at Gamblz is to get each and every one of you reading this to start a blog - why? Apart from being lots of fun (no really, it is!), blogging is a great way to focus your social networking activities, can help friends and family keep up with what you’re doing, and if you’re so inclined… can even make you some decent money.

Up to a few years ago, blogging was seen as more of a personal journal than anything really substantial, but as blogging software has improved, so to has the scope of sites that are built on its foundations. Most blogging software today act as fully functioned Content Management Systems, which means you have a lot more flexibility in the type of product that you can produce - even with little or no technical ability, blogging makes it easy for you to stake out your own little corner of the web and share your interests with the world.

Reasons for Blogging

Everyone will have different goals for their blog, but that’s ok, because of a blogs simplicity (and flexibility), it’s appropriate for many different situations. Here’s a quick look at some of the reasons why you might start a blog.

• Keeping a Personal JournalIt may be the oldest use for a blog, but it’s still a valid reason to start one. Do you want to share your life with the world? or maybe just an important event? Blogging is a great medium for you to express your thoughts, share photos and videos and maintain a permanent record.

  You might also be interested in the recent trend of ‘microblogging’ using tools such as Twitter to send short status updates (twitter restricts you to 140 characters max per update). Twitter allows two-way conversations (a bit like comments on a blog), but is a lot more immediate. You can follow Gamblz on Twitter to communicate with me and stay up to date on what’s happening here.

• Online Reputation ManagementAnother key goal for some bloggers is to help manage either their personal, or companies online reputation. When you search for your name (or your companies name), what do you see? Having your own blog lets you add content that you would like people to read about you and promote it to the point where it shows above other results on Google. You can also use similar techniques to ‘bury’ information on the search engines that you don’t want people to see.
• Make Money from BloggingBlogging is an excellent way for you to make money online. You’ll need to build your blog to a point where you have a decent amount of traffic, but once you’ve achieved that, you’ve got plenty of options available for you to make money, such as direct advertising, affiliate programs and developing your own products to sell.

  Online Gambling affiliate programs are an excellent choice and one any gambling related blog should seriously investigate.

• Build Name/Brand RecognitionBlogging is an excellent way to build recognition for you name or brand. You might want to build yourself as an expert in a field, or build association or recognition for your brand, blogging gives you a great medium to put regularly changing content in front of your target audience and slowly build a professional relationship with them.
• Share Knowledge / ConnectYou might just have a love for sharing information and connecting with others that share your interests. Blogging is a great way to disperse information and connect with interested people.

No matter what your goals are, blogging has something for everyone - I’ve only just scratched the surface here, you might have a completely different goal in mind for your blogging… and there’s nothing wrong with that, it really is a flexible medium.

If you’re already a blogger - what goals are you focused on? Has this changed since you first started blogging? Let us know in the comments

It’s not hard to see why Online Gambling Affiliate Programs are some of the most profitable Affiliate Programs on the Internet. Casinos are money making machines - Las Vegas is a testament to that - and as an affiliate, you get to take your cut from it.

When you refer players to an Online Casino or Poker Room - you don’t just get a flat fee referral (although you do usually have that option), you get a share in the revenue generated by that player, usually around 25% for new affiliates. For Online Casino players, that means 25% of everything they lose - it’s quite possible that you could refer just one player to a casino, and earn commissions of several hundred dollars a month. For poker players, you earn a percentage of all rakes they contribute to - so a very active poker player could earn you some significant cash.

These revenue share percentages are usually for the lifetime of the player, which means as you start to refer more and more players, your net monthly income will grow over time, to the point where it will even earn you money if you stopped promoting it.

Compare this to something like the Amazon affiliate program where the buyer you refer might buy a book, and a DVD for a total affiliate payment of under $10 and little prospect of earning more.

There are variations in affiliate programs terms and conditions, so make sure you read each one thoroughy and know what the rules are, but no matter how you slice it, Gambling Affiliate Programs can be very profitable and are a great way for even a casual affiliate to earn some nice money.

Anyone can start referring players by writing an article for us here at Gamblz.com - why not review some of the games at your favorite casino, or relate some experience you’ve had with customer support staff etc. Add in your personal affiliate tag from an affiliate program you choose, sit back and watch the numbers climb.

We’ll be putting together a list of recommended gambling affiliate programs soon, with full profiles and details about what they have to offer. If you have no idea where to begin, that would make a great place to start - so keep an eye out, it’ll be here soon.

(photo by Tracy_O)

Hi - the idea behind the affiliate section on Gamblz.com is to build networking contacts and knowledge around online gambling affiliate programs.

Our particular focus will still be on blogging and social networking and how we integrate those into an affiliate network. As always, what you have to say is important… join the conversation, add to the knowledgebase, be a part of the community.

Submission of content to both Gamblz.com and Affiliate.Gamblz.com is open to everyone (subject to editorial review and acceptance), and we encourage you to use your own affiliate tracking codes, or make direct links to your website(s) so that you get more than just fame(…) and warm fuzzy feelings from your posts. Regular submitters also get full profile pages to help promote their own websites and/or products.

For more information on how to submit an article, submission guidelines etc. check out our submission website.