Betsson key affiliate manager steals € 153.000 commission

[thebookiesoffers]

I wonder how many affiliates had their accounts closed because they didn't meet a set quota when in fact their players were being stolen.

now that one hell of a good point there

[Triple7]

had nothing myself, have the made an 'official statement' that is out there or just an employee in an email to you?

Just an employee who's telling me what's the higher management told him (his words). It's no official statement, but it's worrying a bit to me. It seems they just care about their loss (re-tagging direct players) but they do not care about losses of other people that are no losses for them. Because for their pocket it makes no difference at all if they pay commission to me or they're paying it to Alex van Dalen or his wife.

They also should have made some kind of statement before things appeared in the newspaper. The fact that there's no statement at all, says all about Betsson.

[lolTRICKEDu]

Re: the re-tagging of players at income access - I am pretty sure they can do that. Isn't that the same as when they ringfence players for example? I have had different programs ring fence big winners, if they can do this it must be possible to alter the tags without knowing?

[Mikew]

It's a shame to see how affiliate programs or managers try hard to steal from us!
I bet all betsson affiliates are now wondering if some of their big players had not been retagged to this guy, and they have to right to do.
But I will keep an eye on this thread and hope that an affiliate manager from betsson would have the balls to comment here.
My question to them is, what would they do when they will recover the whole or a part of the money?
Investigate and paid the victims "affiliates who generated the traffic" or keep the money in their own accounts?

[golfbettingsystem]

Trust is critical in this industry and this kind of issue does nothing to instil confidence in the process and the parties involved in particular. Whilst the potential for skimming, re-tagging etc is always at the back of my mind, on a day-to-day basis the positive, trusting side of me likes to think this doesn't happen in reality. Clearly not which is a massive shame.

[ocreditor]

It's a shame to see how affiliate programs or managers try hard to steal from us!
I bet all betsson affiliates are now wondering if some of their big players had not been retagged to this guy, and they have to right to do.
But I will keep an eye on this thread and hope that an affiliate manager from betsson would have the balls to comment here.
My question to them is, what would they do when they will recover the whole or a part of the money?
Investigate and paid the victims "affiliates who generated the traffic" or keep the money in their own accounts?

This story explains a bit why my rev-share from betsson was cut this year and standing on close to 0 each month... without any reasonable reason... its a shame

[justbookies]

Maybe this story will do affiliates a big favour - if it means operators ensure affiliate managers can't re-tag or de-tag at will and so prevent them from defrauding their employers. If they do that then it will also give a small level of protection to affiliate accounts, just by accident of course because operators dont give a toss about that aspect of it. It's ok for the affiliate department to rip off affiliates . . just dont steal from the hand that feeds you.

This is far from the first time, though interesting he is being taken publically to court. Normally they just sack offenders and hush it up. Betsson's move to bring it into the open can only help. Now when you see your turnovers shrink unrealistically, you know you are not just being neurotic.

[ARZ]

I don´t know anything about possible re-tagging, but what I know from one friend of mine, who worked as an aff manager for a long time, is that the aff tags can dissappear. So all player´s deposits and activity is not visible by affs no more and casino keeps all revenues made by the player "in house". It has to be mainly in the VIP players cases, it´s very simply for the casino to "untag" the player, who is depositing big amounts repeately..

[best.onplay]

Absolutely terrible news, when it's not the aff program, it's someone else...

[-Shay-]

I cannot believe that there was no affiliates impacted by this theft. Just a matter of logic here - If a player directly visits the site, signs up, and deposits - I suspect he is not tagged. He/she is only tagged if there is a referrer (affiliate site).

Thus, in order to "re-tag" - this means a tag had to exist in the first place.

While many affiliate tracking platforms may not "allow" tagging, untagging, and retagging of players - it does not mean that it cannot happen at a higher level and before the data ever reaches the tracking platform.

[Herki]

that the accused had created websites for online casinos

So the affiliate manager was running his own affiliate sites? Using insights from confidential affiliate data to compete against us? As well as stealing our players??!?!? WTF!!!!

I've sent 1000s of clicks to the betsson brands in the last couple of months and have had zero conversions, I'm definitely removing them from my site.

[Triple7]

So the affiliate manager was running his own affiliate sites? Using insights from confidential affiliate data to compete against us? As well as stealing our players??!?!? WTF!!!!

I've sent 1000s of clicks to the betsson brands in the last couple of months and have had zero conversions, I'm definitely removing them from my site.

Yep, something like this. Those portals were not his, but were Betsson's I guess. Some of them even have the GPWA-seal although they are runned by Betsson.

Betsson's story is that he just re-tagged non-affiliate players to his account, but reading and hearing all the stories happening with Betsson. If it smelled already like a duck, it quacked already like a duck and now also looks like a duck...

[MMM]

I cannot believe that there was no affiliates impacted by this theft. Just a matter of logic here - If a player directly visits the site, signs up, and deposits - I suspect he is not tagged. He/she is only tagged if there is a referrer (affiliate site).

In most programs, the no-tag is also a tag - default tag. For example 0 is the default and then you have all affid.
In any case, if i was him, I would target only players tagged to affiliates and not the default ones. That way he actually steals only from affiliates, while Betsson pay the same (just to a different person) and won't see any increase in expenses.

[Syndicate]

We have two accounts with Income access, and the numbers are appalling. 6200 clicks with 7 sign ups and 4 depositing. and the other that is just 3 weeks old has 1 in 323 (paid). With the first we get paid a fixed sum and so i wont lose any sleep over it. However, despite that being a betting-exchange, i would have expected 1 to 2% conversion rate. The second is a bigger worry since i would have expected 3-5% - and both should suit our site. Another operator that i wouldn't expect to convert does so at 3.7%, and our average would be about 2.3%!

I have no idea of whether Income access able cheating, but we will never accept them again unless its fixed price !!

[betpro]

Hi Guys,

Long time reader, first time poster.

I'm from Australia and the affiliate industry in the gaming sector is becoming extremely dodgy and untrustworthy.

I know an ex-affiliate manager who I met at a business function (won't name the company) who told me that they use to always remove players (at the companies request) from affiliates and swap them with an inactive account so that the numbers still stayed the same from the affiliates log in portal.

He also said that they would ring the big players and offer them a 10-15% monthly rebate on losing months (as if the player was their own affiliate), but in order to offer them this, they would need to set up a new account, which would then mean they would be inactive on the affiliates account.

He no longer works there but said that it was the dodgiest environment and basically the only affiliates who will make good money are two types:

Type 1 - Extremely high traffic websites, which bring in over 100 first time players per month - They get a guaranteed tenancy payment on top of their revenue, so they can rest easy at night. (They still probably get stitched up on the revenue).

Type 2 - VIP affiliates who personally introduce big players to the program. Affiliate Managers know they can remove the players as the VIP affiliate has a strong personal relationship with the player.

If you doing small numbers then expect to get shafted big time!

He also said that 1 affiliate requested to do an audit on them as he believed they were ripping him off. Even though it said in the T&C that an affiliate has the right to an audit, The company didn't like that and cancelled his affiliate account due to being inactive for 3 months as per the T&C.

It's a no win situation for us unfortunately!

[golfbettingsystem]

Surely each of the providers of affiliate tracking software has the ability to query their database and produce reports such as:
- players whose affiliate tag has changed and are still playing
- players whose affiliate tag has been removed and are still playing

Producing such reports would not only help to reassure affiliates that their revenues aren't being compromised, but would also proactively help to identify issues such as the Betsson affiliate manager example and report back to the program. I'd go so far as to say that this isn't just something they could do, it's something they should be obligated to do.

Could they also identify programs with abnormally high self-exclusion rates? Even if nothing untoward was going on, surely it would help the bookmaker/casino to identify any issues which can only benefit all involved? What else? Identification of duplicate players across the same program? I expect there's a massive amount that could be done to benefit everyone.

I'd be very interested to hear a response from the software providers on this whole issue.

[Topboss]

I have been an Affiliate for 15 years and obviously built up a pretty decent database of players over the years, and should be extremely wealthy when I look back on all the whales that have come and gone.... but I am not.....why? Because the whales all "disappear" after the first few months....and I have heard every excuse in the book " The Player has self excluded ", "The Player has stopped playing ", "They didn't sign up through your tag " ( until you provide them with screenshots as it was a deliberate test you did in the first place ) ..... then it changes to " glitch in the system" "stats are delayed" "We gave them a Bonus to retain their account" ( when you query a $660.00 bonus on a $21.00 deposit on the last day of the month ) These are just a few that come to mind.....

Then of course we have the "Big winners " that regularly win on the last 2 days of the month which coincidentally always manages to either just wipe out your commission completely or reduce it from tens of thousands to Hundreds. Yes, Of course we know that players win...but too much coincidence that they always win on the last day of the month. I can accept coincidence once, twice and even 3 times, but when it happens like clockwork - it is no longer a coincidence.

I am not tarring all the casinos with the same brush as there is still a handful that I trust and genuinely believe I am not being shafted but I can literally count those ones on one hand.

And don't let me get started on the Affiliate program software changes/ merges which also result in players being "lost" along the way...

I am finding myself insisting on fixed advertising deals these days simply because the trust is no longer there.... Very sad considering this industry was great years ago - Now it is just full of greed and it is a shame for the few genuine operators out there.

[Moonlight Cat]

Main Rule in this business. Never trust affiliate managers and affiliate programs.

[Topboss]

Further to my post above - I 100% agree with Golfbettingsystem re the reports he suggested, and I am betting these reports probably are available but the chances of them actually being audited and queried by someone who has the Affiliate's interests at heart is very slim....
I believe that when a Casino is given a license they should be legally obliged to have the Affiliate side of their Business audited too.

[ocreditor]

Main Rule in this business. Never trust affiliate managers and affiliate programs.

Some are trusted... very rare though