Articles that are related to the world of casino affiliate programs, affiliating and things webmaster-like! As a casino affiliate myself, I attend a number of conferences and deal with a lot of casinos directly. This category will include some reviews of casino affiliate programs, reviews of affiliate conferences I attend and anyhing else I think suitable. Hopefully, it will also drive some players to look into becoming affiliates as I firmly believe players are the best people to follow this path and pass on decent help, advice and knowledge to other players.
I’ve noticed one or two threads on popular gambling forums recently concerning the promotion of purpotedly “rogue” gambling operations by affiliates in the sector. One of two posters have been singling out affiliate sites as being ethically challenged so I thought some analysis of their decisions to promote known dodgy outfits would be in order.
The first questions that need to be answered are where does the buck stop with an operator who knowingly defrauds players out of cash and just how common is it? In my experience, the number of good operators outweighs the rogues, but there is no doubt the bad ones exist. The 2006 UIGEA legislation in the USA has had the side-effect of removing most of the good operators from the market putting US players at far greater risk and the key is, as ever, research. Outside the US, the problem is less er, problematic, because the good operators have developed strong brands and 9 times out of 10 outperform their rogue counterparts in search engines. When - if - the USA finally regulate online gambling, there is no doubt that US gamblers will feel a lot safer.
A number of online casino players will be familiar with the online casinos Bella Vegas, Casino Grand Bay, Lake Palace, Jupiter Club & Roadhouse Rules, but not many will be aware of the latest shenanigans involving the group. Things are not looking good here!
As if it wasn’t bad enough with the US government pushing all the good casinos out of the US market leaving the path open for all the dodgy rogues and fly-by-nights to take full advantage, now we have a previously respected group pull a stunt that has got them relegated into the rogue pit at the legendary Casinomeister casino watchdog site.
So what did they do to deserve this? Well for some years now
An interesting development in my inbox this morning. It appears WIlliam Hill casino is ditching the Cryptologic casino platform and moving to Playtech, while at the same time merging with the infamous CPays brand and the lesser known offshoot Webroute Services.
Interesting and probably good too. For those that don’t know, CPays are a very aggressive and generally unpopular online casino operator who manage a few brands. I’ve never liked them myself - they are happy to have spamming affiliates and do whatever it takes to get players and keep them, and complaints are numerous. Whenever I came across a website with their brands on I intuitively knew the affiliate cared more about their commissions than about the players they were trying to inform. They are very closely linked to Playtech and recently, Webroute Services appeared
As mentioned elsewhere, I’ve been affiliating in this game for some 4 years or so now and if there’s one thing I feel I’ve learned pretty well, it’s who you can trust. And conversely, how to spot a problem before it hits. I’m talking about which affiliate programs you work with of course, and one thing affiliates can learn a lot from is the player. It’s not all about percentages and promises, it’s about TRUST.
It didn’t take me long at player forum Casinomeister to realise that most of the more serious problems I was seeing were coming from casinos using the Rtg and Playtech software platforms. I’m not talking about the games - those are certified and I’m pretty confident myself that these are very fair, although often streaky but then that’s the nature of gambling. No, I’m talking about the way players and subsequently affiliates are treated. Moreover, the way potential players
Just got back from the casino affiliate conference in Barcelona run by CAP. It’s the second time I’ve attended the Barcelona conference, my fourth “CAP Euro” and hmmm, must be my 10th industry conference in the past 4 years or so. Actually, strictly speaking it was my 10th and 11th, as I attended EIG this week too - same city, different venue and more geared towards the “online” gambling industry as a whole rather than affiliates.
I was a bit disappointed by EIG to be honest, although the affiliate site “GPWA” (Gambling Portal Webmasters Association”) had part of the exhibition and had asked me to speak about affCAFF and moderate a Panel session for new and aspiring affiliates, so I got involved. If you’ve ever attended ICEi (January every year in London), then EIG is a fraction of the size, although to be fair, ICEi covers