When I read the question I assumed that Garry was talking about the homepages, category pages and product pages of retail sites.
Really hard to get links into those types of pages - especially good links. However, informative pages on the same site can attract links from other websites - and if they are really informative attract enough links to compete.
Search for "hiking boots" and look for the REI page about how to pick a hiking boot.
If I was going to attack "poker" I would do it with an interactive probability game with feedback that every statistics professor on the planet would link to from his .edu webpages. "Don't go along with bets when the odds of drawing your needed card are smaller than the multiple of potential winnings compared to the size of the wager."