Working With RTG & Playtech Casinos

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 and affiliates are approached. 

Many of these casinos were using at best dubious, at worst deceitful, practices to part a player from their money. Bonuses that could never be cashed, promotions that could never be won, promises of this and that, reasons why a player couldn’t be paid.

Additionally, as an affiliate, I found a major culture clash between the way I operate and the way many of these operators go about their business. Ultimately I found that many were Israeli, and in some cases Costa Rican operations. Phone calls, constant unsolicited emails and all the time the message about how much money I could make. But at what cost?

In the end I reached a decision. It’s clear that neither RTG nor (to a lesser degree) Playtech care too much about who licences their software. So I decided that an RTG or Playtech operator who wanted me to represent them would have to meet certain criteria. A minimum of 3-4 years of operations with a good reputation in the player forums was the key. They also have to pay out promptly and not stall for days. The only exceptions I’d make would be online casinos from long established high-street brands. BetFred, Bet365 and ToteSport all operate Playtech casinos and that works for me.

I currently trust just 3 or 4 RTG casinos and that’s all I am prepared to represent and review along with the Playtech brands above. And over and over my decision has proved a good one. I just made one cock-up by adding a casino from BCP - “Best Casino Partner” (Casinoblasters) - to a list I’d made a couple of years back. I picked up a player who clearly liked it there and has been around for ages. I have had so much hassle recently from BCP about traffic, them withholding payments until I send more players and then they even changed the terms of our contract so that if I fail to send more they can stop paying me for previous traffic!!

Needless to say I removed their brands and it this re-affirms my stance. No more RTG or Playtech casinos on my sites unless I am 100% sure the brand has a solid history.

As far as being an affiliate goes it makes sense, not only for my peace of mind and to make an easy life, but from the point of view that if they have this attitude with affiliates, what will they try on with players? I constantly see moans and gripes from affiliates about the programs they work with, dodgy commission payments, hidden costs, slow-pays or no-pays, chargebacks etc, and more often than not, one glance at who it is giving the problem backs up my theory.

The key to being a succesful long-term affiliate in this business is ensuring your players find casinos they like, trust and want to stay with. That means looking beyond the affiliate program into the casinos themselves. If the casinos aren’t doing their job right (and I mean ethically as much as providing good service), then it doesn’t matter how much commission you are offerred, you are staring into the abyss. f you pick the casinos to represent based on the affiliate program, then IMO you’re going about it all wrong.

OK…I’m done :)

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