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Affiliates of Trust
By Lloyd Apter
Mar 15, 2006, 13:32

Trust is the number one issue in our business. The unique casino affiliate / casino affiliate program relationship is on one hand very open and non-exclusive, while on the other hand in order to achieve success, it requires a high level of mutual trust and co-operation between both parties. As a casino affiliate program manager, I constantly receive questions that address the honesty of our operations, reporting, tracking, payments etc... and I’m sure that the same is true for most casino affiliate programs.

There is a huge difference between poor or inadequate affiliate reporting, tracking and payment systems and deliberate attempts to steal affiliate revenues. Programs can sometimes be careless and miss issues that are crucial to their affiliates, and sometimes they can be doing their utmost for their affiliates and still experience database and systems errors. However, the vast majority of casino affiliate programs that are recognized by the main casino affiliate communities are honest and, I would like to add, that they very much respect and appreciate their affiliates as business partners.

So, why are there so many public disagreements between the casino affiliates and casino affiliate programs? Often there are real issues that need to be addressed, but sometimes there are interpersonal or confidential issues that should never be brought into the public arena.

A casino affiliate arbitration committee could be extremely helpful in this area. It would be the committee’s job to review and process affiliate claims made against casino affiliate programs and decide if the issues require public attention or not. For instance, if an affiliate discovers an error in a casino affiliate program tracking, reporting or payment system, the arbitration committee could ensure that the casino affiliate program manager properly addresses the error.

There will always be cases of disagreement, but a solid and fair arbitration committee could iron out these issues. Of course, if they feel that the program is being unfair or unreasonable, they can reserve the right to open the issues up to the entire casino affiliate community.

Also, the arbitration committee will deal with issues such as spam, pirated content, affiliate disputes and trademark issues.

Setting up a casino affiliate arbitration committee would require deciding many issues - How are the members voted in? Who checks the work of the committee? How does the reporting work? The list of questions goes on and on. However, first we need to decide if we are ready to regulate ourselves and then how we are going to do it.

We, casino affiliates and casino affiliate program managers, are all in this industry to enjoy ourselves and to do business. We need to keep our main focus on developing our businesses and our industry in general. Let's find better ways to work together!

I’ve made my decision. If you have any comments/thoughts on this subject, please drop me a line at lloyda@brightshare.com.

The writer is the affiliate manager at BrightShare, one of the industry’s most honourable and respected affiliate programs.