Betsafe updates Predatory Term

[kwblue]

Betsafe added a clause to clarify the fact that they added a 'Minimum Player Rule' to their Terms and Conditions:

Originally Posted by Updated

6.14 Your Betsafe affiliate account must have a minimum of 5 active referred Customers before you will be eligible for Referral Commission payment. Please note that the sole purpose of this rule is to protect us against arbitrage players taking advantage of our program. Honest affiliates that indeed owns a website and affiliates that gets all or part of their commission from Casino/Poker revenue, should not consider this rule as part of the TC.

Not quite sure what to make of this change.... I believe they are trying to ensure that affiliates are not going to be governed by the rule. So, this is an attempt at being affiliate-friendly. I am not quite sure what 'arbitrage players' have to do with an affiliate, though, since affiliates just bring players and (in most cases) don't even know who those players are.

Regardless, a discussion should ensue on whether this is workable or not. In my opinion, it needs much more clarification to NOT be predatory.

[MichaelCorfman]

Well, we should probably ask Betsafe what they consider to be an arbitrage player, but I'll make a guess.

Friend Affiliate 1 sets up and affiliate account where friend player 1 bets $5,000 on red on roulette.

Friend Affiliate 2 set up an affiliate account where friend player 2 bets $5,000 on black on roulette.

Player 1 wins, doubling his money. Affiliate 1 gets nothing.

Player 2 loses. Affiliate 2 gets say 25% of $5,000 or $1,250.

Net across the friends is a win of $1,250.

When you can be an affiliate with a small number of players (1 is best) this sort of collusion is relatively trivial to arrange.

In the situation outlined above the casino will pretty consistently draw the short straw.

And if there are no loss carry forwards, you can keep doing this as long as the gaming site will let you. The house edge is not large enough to overcome the affiliate payments when playing arbitrage like this. If you can do it on the same event on both sides (such as betting on a sporting event), you can easily produce guaranteed wins.

Michael

[kwblue]

Definitely a possibility, though I wish it were worded better. The wording above makes it simple to read that term and apply it in many different ways.

I think this sort of 'collusion' should be outlined more in the termination clause instead of adding a 'Minimum Player Rule' and then attempting to associate it with collusion.

[kwblue]

The term has now been worded more appropriately and now is located in the termination section and geared more directly towards affiliates who plan to defraud the program.

Good work Betsafe!

BetSafe Update