Online Casinos @ Casinovas

Ladbrooks? Ladbrookes? Uh-uh…try Ladbrokes!

Looking through some stuff on the web today and it amazed me how many people mis-spell “Ladbrokes”. Apparently last month there were over 60,000 Google searches for “Ladbrookes” and nearly 50,000 for “Ladbrooks”. It made me think how the Internet has changed branding concepts.

I mean back in the day, pre Internet, no-one probably thought twice about naming a brand with a pronunciation that sounded different to the spelling. But these days, potentially it not only allows traffic to bypass you, but also opens the door for competitors to capitalise. Or in Ladbrokes case, affiliates. That said, I notice that ahead of all the mis-spellings when you search on “Ladbrooks” or “Ladbrookes”, the real Ladbrokes still come top. But that’s largely down to Google’s intelligence I guess.

And even more amazingly we recently had the much hyped launch of the “Cuil” search engine (pronounced “cool”). Well I would have thought that, while clearly original, the name “Cuil” is going to miss out on some traffic. Ironic it’s a search engine, and even more ironic than on the day it launched, it didn’t even appear on the first page of it’s own search results.

Anyway, there you go…my thought for the day.

Lasseters Online Casino To Close

The 2006 UIGEA strikes! The long-standing and reputable Aussie based Lasseters has decided to close it’s online casino with immediate effect as a result of the changes in US law made 2 years ago this month.

“Following the announcement to the Australian Stock Exchange on 9 September 2008, the Directors have taken the subsequent decision to cease the operations of Lasseters Online Casino due to our inability to compete and retain our market share since the closure of the US market in October 2006.”

It came rather suddenly with everyone being emailed today. Turns out that they just can’t compete since the US introduced laws to prevent the flow of cash in and out of online gambling operations from players. That law is under increasing scrutiny with several politicians realising it’s folly are backing a new law to stamp on the original one. Quite right too as the perpetrators of the original UIGEA just didnt’ think it through - well they probably did, but votes rain down quicker on the moral high grounds. ”Ooh I know…let’s take steps to prohibit gambling and hope it goes away”. Or put another way, “Ooh I know…let’s get rid of the reputable operators and let the thieves in through the back door”. Brilliant Holmes!

D’oh!

And so here we have the first really high-profile reputable casino going down. No doubt the UIGEA politicians will pat themselves on the back at how well they are protecting their flock. Meanwhile some dodgy clip-joint will fill their place.

And the wheels of the universe keeps turning…

ICANN Agrees To Handover 141 Domain Names to Kentucky State!

Now this is pretty serious stuff for ANY domain name owner or company trading online, irrespective of market, product or jurisdiction.

The State of Kentucky (actually, strictly speaking it’s a Commonwealth) has recently won a court judgement to seize control of 141 domain names that are related to gambling and shockingly, ICANN have agreed to hand over the domains! We’re not talking small companies here either. Golden Palace, Microgaming, Carmen Media and many more. This is causing serious waves in the industry, needless to say but has much more far-reaching repercussions beyond the online gambling market. Although it’s pretty straightforward for most to just switch domain names, there are two major knock-on effects of this landmark ruling which if enforced after the appeal on the 7th October, should worry many, many companies and doman name owners across all areas of industry.

Firstly, regards gambling, the residents of Kentucky are now even more open to fraud from illegal gambling operators than they were already  

Casino Affiliate Conference Report - Barcelona 08

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  

Neteller Goes Affiliate Driven

Most experienced online gamblers will be familiar with Neteller, the eWallet that is accepted at just about every sportsbook, casino or poker room going. Excluding US residents of course. Well anyway, they just launched an affiliate program which may be of interest - Neteller Affiliate Program - with a bounty for every new account holder on their first succesful transaction. Frankly, it’s not a great bounty at £20 a throw, but at least it’s something.

I’ve used Neteller for years and apart from the odd frustration, it’s served me well. It’s generally the quickest way to get money in and out of the merchants and can be treated like an offshre bank account to a degree. They are based in the Isle Of Man  

King Neptunes Casino Joins Belle Rock

Just received a mail from a casino I used to play at - King Neptunes - to say that they have been brought under the Belle Rock Entertainment brand banner. King Neptunes was part of the excellent Trident Lounge group but a while back was sold (with Trident Lounge Casino) to Carmen Media. No surprise here bearing in mind carmen own Belle Rock, who in turn manage the Carmen casino brands Jackpot City, Lucky Nugget, Gaming Club and River Belle. Good Microgaming casinos - like Neptunes - with a long and pretty solid history. The only downside is that BR support is pretty slow - it takes me anything up to 12 hours to get a response on a bad day. Otherwise, a pretty positive move.

Useful Live Feed For Casino & Poker Affiliates

affCAFF is a free system for webmasters that allows them to plug in bonuses, promotions and news from over 200 (at last count) online casinos, poker rooms, bingo sites and sportsbooks. It works by putting a line of Javascript or PHP, depending on which you prefer, into any page on your website and then it updates the bonus or promotion in real-time as soon as it is updated.

It also has an RSS feed integration tool too so that feeds from the casinos, poker rooms etc can be integrated into webmaster sites without any knowledge of RSS required.

In all the above cases, it lets the webmaster wrap the line of code that provides the feed in their own affiliate links too. Very neat and very easy to use. Visit affCAFF…

Mobile Casino & Poker - Smoking or A Dud?

The latest thing seems to be to do everything on your phone - or so we’re told. Download music, surf the web, email and now…poker and casino! To be honest, I used to own a PDA and found I never really used it except to - shock, horror - make phone calls! So I’m alitle sceptical. But then again, as a gambler, thought it would be interesting to check out this new one. This article sums up what I thought of it all. Is there a future? Is it the next best thing since sliced bread? Or a dud?

I downloaded one poker room and two mobile casinos: Aces Royal for the poker and for the casinos, Ladbrokes and Wild Jack (the only one of these that also accepts USA players by the way). As it turns out, the latter two are the same software so you get the same games. I’m not go into too much detail on games and stuff - only to say that graphically and operationally they are pretty impressive. If you want more on those - check out my Mobile Phones & Gambling satellite site.

Anyway - lets’ start with the Poker. 6 players to a table, various table limits, all Texas Hold’Em. You play against real people - it’s simply  

Casino Affiliate Guide

As a casino affiliate, I get asked a number of questions by players who fancy a shot at earning a buck from the affiliate side of the game. For those who don’t know, an affiliate is a webmaster who runs a site that promotes, reviews or offers information on products and services in return for a commission. In the casino and poker game, it’s big business and highly competitive, but for a player who also has the skills to put a half-decent website together, it can be lucrative given time.

I intend to do a series of articles on what it takes to be a good casino affiliate. I’ll deal with content, domain names and the art of search engine optimisation (SEO) in due course, but by way of an intro, this article lays out the basics…the information you need that will help you decide if it’s a course you wish to follow. If you get it right, there is no better business to be in. You simply drive traffic to your sites and refer them to online casinos who then do the work of retention and everything for you. However, that isn’t to say you have no responsibilities: you need to put the player first and it does require regular attention, but once established  

A Guide For Casino Players

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