I have questions that I need answered about my forum

Hi, I am Cathy. I have been doing computer graphics since I got my first computer in 1990. I started with print shop, loved graphic design then moved on to PageMaker, Quark, Corel, and now I mostly use Photoshop. I then started teaching myself web design about five years ago and I love it. I found Net Objects to be the most user friendly. I have Dream Weaver, but had trouble getting a site started and I am tired of spending so much time learning and troubleshooting and fixing my computer, I JUST WANT TO DESIGN AND MAKE MONEY.

I had lost my job as a Manager of a book publishing company due inability to come to a mutual wage agreement. I had made the company a lot of money and I wanted more money than the cheap raise that they offered. Therefore, I decided if I was going to make anyone rich, or any company successful it would be me and my company. So I started looking into affiliate partnerships. Then I researched what type of businesses make the largest percent of the money that is spent on the internet. Well, online gambling was hard to ignore with a whopping 54%. That is huge. So I started signing up with casino affiliate groups with plans to start with a gambling directory, a gambling forum and then expand into an affiliate directory starting with gambling sites and then move into all types of business within the directory.

I had never designed a forum and came across the EZ Board community. I obtained a forum and begin teaching myself. It was basically pretty simple with the exceptions of a few things. I am completely self taught and there are some things that I can't teach myself because I don't know what it is that I need to have, look for, or where to go.

My forum is finally beginning to realize an income. in June I earned commissions of approximately $1,300, and for July I earned a little over $3,000. When you consider the total number of hours that I probably put into my forum in the last seven months I probably only made about -10.00 an hour, but it is a start and I am excited. What gets gamblers to a gambling forum is contest and the prize being a casino account, or funding their Neteller account so they can use the money to fund an account that they have at an online casino. I need to increase the number of thread posting, and depositors so I have an idea where the members earn funny money, which is really points, but called something like gramblebucks, (my forum is called Gamble Ramble) the gamblebucks can be converted into real money that will be funded onto their Neteller account. They can convert to real cash when they reach 200 gramblebucks. 100 gramblebucks in equivalant to $10, therefore a member cannot convert until they reach $200 in gramblebucks.

Here is my dilemma......how/what/where????? I want to make my forum so that when a member makes a post the username and the subject of their post and the date are input??? into a database, then an e-mail is sent automatically telling them how many gramblebucks they have and thanks them for posting. If they deposit into a casino I want a form that they can fill out (I know how to do this but I want it to more sophisticated than just a form that is e-mailed to me) and then that info also is input into the database. I want to be able to access the database and look at a members account in regards to their accumulated gramblebucks. I want to be able to input into a field when a member converts into cash and then the gramblebucks zero out again, but there is a report, or record accounting for all gramblebuck transactions that take place. I also want to know how and what it is that I need to do in order to put some kind of interactive type games, like a lotto board where members pick so many numbers and then the lotto board at a certain time, I guess, displays winning numbers and the name of the user that wins, or some kind of keno, bingo, or something that can be played and the players history is kept on record with the ability to be viewed by me for the purposes of determining a winner of all that played on this game, it could even be slots, but real money is not used, but instead all players start out with the same number of points and the person that has the most points after playing a certain length of time, or whatever, is the winner of gramblebucks.

I hope that I am explaining all of this so that you know what I mean. I don't even know or have a clue what to look for or where to start, so I thought I might try reaching out for some advice, and answers of what it is called and what it is I need, or if it is even possible. I have a website that was going to be a casino directory if I can ever find the time to finish it. Anyway, all graphics that I design, animations I created are linked to pages on the under construction casino directory. I don't know if that is useful or necessary information, but I thought that someone might need to know that a member can click from my forum and be directed to a page on my website because the capabilities of the EZ Board forum are limited. However, sometimes I visit some of the other Gambling Forums and I can't believe some of the stuff that can be done, and HOW DO THEY DO IT??? I just can't figure out where in the EZ Board Administrator's control panel they apply such sophisticated capabilities. I suppose it is all by way of html and a good knowledge of html. My html experience is limited to banners and I have just started understanding or realizing some of the coding.

I am sorry this is so long, but I don't know what I am looking for is called, so I thought it best to give a thorough description so that I could a person to respond that actually knows, understands, and has experience with what I want to do on my forum.

Thank you, in advance, for your help and for taking the time to read this so that you might have some answers for me. Remember that with a little help at the starting gate I, so far, have been able to teach myself everything that I have needed or wanted to learn, up to now. I don't even know where I begin; I don't even know what it is called. I understand databases, I have designed some relational databases a long time ago, but the databases still have to be incorporated into the forum, or onto the Net Objects program and be published to the internet and work. The forum members can always click to the site if what I want does not work within the EZ Board community. Maybe it is not a database, maybe it is java...html, I just don't know what it is that I want. Please Help!!

If you need to see my forum so that you can look at it in order to see what I am working with you can click this link: http://pub9.ezboard.com/bgambleramble

I am also in the process of designing another gambling forum for the purposes of expanding in the hopes to get more visitors between both forums. I don't want members to know that the two forums are operated by the same person. You can view that forum which is under construction at http://p197.ezboard.com/bgamblingpost

You can also view my gambling directory at http://www.bestcasinocash.com, actually it is supposed to be at http://www.casinohookup.com, but I have the worse web hosting company on earth and my sites go down for weeks at a time. I call them and they say it will be up in an hour or two, well weeks later it is still down. I had to publish to the bestcasinocash site and re-link all of the graphics on my forum, I still haven't finished that project, I don't know if I ever will. Anyway, I hope this information helps someone so they can help me.

Thank you again
ckopasek (Cathy)
please send your responses to [email protected]