Bye Bye MadAboutSlots

[Scampi]

Just had an email from MadAboutSlots that basically says they are doing a runner with every-ones affiliate traffic in November. I must say I never sent them anything, but just a heads up if you didn't receive an email, you'll probably want to be removing any tracking or promotion for them.
Are they going bust, or just dumping affiliates?

We regret to inform you that Mad About Slots Affiliate Program will close on the 1st, November 2014.

The events leading to this decision were unexpected, however due to issues that are out of control, we have no other option, but to close the Affiliate Program for the foreseeable future.
Mad About Slots is a White Label Partner site of Probability and there are certain issues, which are out of our control; CRM, POC TAX and UK Gambling license.
These issues along with increased admin fees have resulted in the termination of the affiliate agreement.

Under the Term and Termination section of the agreement http://affiliates.madaboutslots.co.u...conditions.asp

It permits either party to terminate the agreement immediately via writing and delivery via e-mail is considered a written and immediate form of notification.


However, we wanted to give you notice so that you have time to remove any banners and links, etc. from your sites before the termination date.


The conditions of the termination are as follows:
* You must remove the Madabout Slot’s Affiliates or Merchant's banner(s) from your site and disable any links from your site to ours and theirs.
* All rights and licenses given to you in this Agreement shall immediately terminate.
* You will be entitled only to those unpaid referral fees, if any, earned by you on or prior to the date of termination. You will not be entitled to referral fees occurring after the date of termination.
* If you have failed to fulfill your obligations and responsibilities, we will not pay you the referral fees otherwise owing to you on termination.
* We may withhold your final payment for a reasonable time to ensure that the correct amount is paid.
* If we continue to permit activity (generation of revenue) from customers after termination, this will not constitute a continuation or renewal of this Agreement or a waiver of termination.
* You will return to us any confidential information, and all copies of it in your possession, custody and control. And will cease all uses of any trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos and other designations of our Merchants.
* You and we will be released from all obligations and liabilities to each other occurring or arising after the date of such termination. Except with respect to those obligations that by their nature are designed to survive termination, as set out in this Agreement. Termination will not relieve you from any liability arising from any breach of this Agreement that occurred prior to termination.

It will mean that as of the 1st November; we will no longer track any traffic. All outstanding commissions will be paid within 30 days from the start of the termination.


On behalf of Madaboutslots, we want to thank you for all of your hard work as an affiliate and brand ambassadors for Mad About Slots.
And offer our sincerest apologies for any difficulty and frustration this may cause.

[-Shay-]

Just had an email from MadAboutSlots that basically says they are doing a runner with every-ones affiliate traffic in November. I must say I never sent them anything, but just a heads up if you didn't receive an email, you'll probably want to be removing any tracking or promotion for them.
Are they going bust, or just dumping affiliates?

Sounds like they're dumping affiliates due to the UK licencing issue. The guy who runs Mad About Slots is an affiliate, so he surely has a nice list to build upon.

[RacingJim]

I remember they approached me a couple of times last year, I avoided them due to:

- Knowing they were essentially an affiliate business themselves, I'm never really happy to send traffic in that way
- Not trusting smaller companies with my valuable traffic, I try only to deal with top, reputable brands

Glad I avoided them now!

[ocreditor]

Another inferior brand is gone

[Gamer]

Interesting!
They try the business model of being middle-man.
We work hard, they gets the creme.
He must came from North Korea - didn't make it!

[Storebuilder]

I've not seen the email yet but I Just checked my account - £49.84 in commission this year!

COMMISSION AND REFERRAL BONUS
You shall be entitled to a commission as outlined in the merchant’s terms and conditions. Madabout Slot’s Affiliates does not process your payments for commissions this is the responsibility of the merchant.

What does that mean?

Another mistake to learn from.

[-Shay-]

I've not seen the email yet but I Just checked my account - £49.84 in commission this year!

COMMISSION AND REFERRAL BONUS
You shall be entitled to a commission as outlined in the merchant’s terms and conditions. Madabout Slot’s Affiliates does not process your payments for commissions this is the responsibility of the merchant.

What does that mean?

Another mistake to learn from.

It means "Income Access" doesn't take responsibility for sending payments. Search the forum for Mira Bingo to see how cases like this (where IA represents the brand and does everything except take responsibility for payments) can turn out.

[Storebuilder]

Thanks for that Shay.
I'm sorry to be a bit of a dimwit - does this mean madaboutslots has just copied the terms and conditions from income access verbatim and there is no payment terms and conditions?

[-Shay-]

Thanks for that Shay.
I'm sorry to be a bit of a dimwit - does this mean madaboutslots has just copied the terms and conditions from income access verbatim and there is no payment terms and conditions?

No, it means that the owners of Mad About Slots are responsible for payment and if they default, you have to track them down, as the Income Access employees and reps (who work on the Mad About Slots Account) are not in any way responsible for getting you paid.

Hopefully, it doesn't come to that... Just stating worst case scenario from past experience.

[Storebuilder]

These are the madaboutslots T&C http://affiliates.madaboutslots.co.u...conditions.asp

You shall be entitled to a commission as outlined in the merchant’s terms and conditions. Madabout Slot’s Affiliates does not process your payments for commissions this is the responsibility of the merchant.

Who is the merchant then? The merchant is Probability of which MAS is an affiliate correct?

But no stats show up in my probability affiliate account for MAS?

So effectively I am under Probability payment terms (minimum payment £60) which means I'll never see my £49.84 commission anyway.

It's just another good reason why trying to grow a site by adding more and more operators is poor mans SEO.

[-Shay-]

"The term "Merchant" is defined as any company that has contracted Madabout Slot’s Affiliates to promote their Site(s) and or products. The contract provides you with the non-exclusive right to direct users ("Visitors") from your site or sites to the Merchant's websites, in return for the payment of commissions and referral bonuses as specified below."

So in this case, it is Probability.

To add further confusion to the matter... Probability's t&c

Probability Affiliates does not process your payments for commissions. Income Access manages this on our behalf.

Probability claims they are not responsible for payments... They rely on Income Access.

So... not to make a confusing situation more confusing - they "can" all point the finger at one another. To be fair, I do not think that will happen in this case. I've seen it happen before with Mira Bingo --- but I think in the case of Mad About Slots, they'll make good on all commissions through 31 October.

[Storebuilder]

Thanks for clearing that up Shay!

[universal4]

Yep, good point Shay, I fell victim to this a few hundred years ago when an Aussie property closed.

The casino said IA was responsible and IA said the casino was.

I never got the few bucks that were there, and I had already tried to allow them to pay someone else since I felt better about someone else getting the money then allowing the two companies to keep their pieces.

I truly like the IA software and think they do a pretty good job in their niche with what they do, but if they truly manage the payment side of things for the groups, then they need to do so. They should maybe also take some time and verify that the terms match for ALL groups they are working with and make sure this finger pointing back and forth stops.

Rick
Universal4

[Madabout Media]

Sounds like they're dumping affiliates due to the UK licencing issue. The guy who runs Mad About Slots is an affiliate, so he surely has a nice list to build upon.

Hi i am said affiliate and owner of madaboutslots affiliate program. I understand everyones concerns however i dont take lightly your words concerning player data bases. This clearly shows you lack of knowledge on this part. All the player data is actually owned by Proability and as a white label partner we have no access to this data. The affiliate program is closing down due to the uncertainty regarding the UK gambling license with Probaility and the POC tax. As a white label partner all affiliate costs, payments, transaction fees, Affiliate program fees and Affiliate manager fees all come out of our % of NGR which means we was running the affiliate site at a loss for a long time.
Another reason is that as a partner we have no control over the CRM, conversions or player rentention this is all handled by the operator partner e.g. Probability. As an affiliate myself i wouldnt push a site that didnt convert and conversions overall on the site has dropped over the last 12 months. i dont have no control over this.
If you have any concerns please speak to Danielle the AM at affiliates@madaboutslots.co.uk or feel free to PM me.

[Madabout Media]

Yep, good point Shay, I fell victim to this a few hundred years ago when an Aussie property closed.

The casino said IA was responsible and IA said the casino was.

I never got the few bucks that were there, and I had already tried to allow them to pay someone else since I felt better about someone else getting the money then allowing the two companies to keep their pieces.

I truly like the IA software and think they do a pretty good job in their niche with what they do, but if they truly manage the payment side of things for the groups, then they need to do so. They should maybe also take some time and verify that the terms match for ALL groups they are working with and make sure this finger pointing back and forth stops.

Rick
Universal4

The terms of the affiliate site are the standard terms we need to add as per an IA affiliate software partner and the terms and conditions on madaboutslots.co.uk is for players. We have no affiliation with probability affiliates this is a separate run program.
As per the email sent, clearly states, sent by the AM. All payments will be processed within 30 days of the close of the program which is the 1st of November.
I have taken the hard decision to close the program as we have limited say in the overall CRM,Conversion and retention of the players everyone sends, and over the last 12 months this has got alot worse. Alot of other white label owners e.g. affiliates on here will tell you the same thing, there isnt much that you have a say in apart form the site design and marketing of the site.

[Madabout Media]

I have spoke with IA and all tracking and players to everyones accounts are all honoured until 1st November. I have even gone one step further and asked them to save all data, player data, affiliate data etc. So that if the conversion, CRM, admin fees, POC tax and every other problem we have no control over ever gets fixed i can relaunch the program and all affiliates and player data will still be tracked and all players you once sent would then re track from the date the program ever goes live again.
As an affiliate myself since 2006 this is alot more then any other affiliate program would do, must would just turn the program off without any notice, and if it ever changed hands or re launch you would lose all the players etc.

[-Shay-]

Hi i am said affiliate and owner of madaboutslots affiliate program. I understand everyones concerns however i dont take lightly your words concerning player data bases. This clearly shows you lack of knowledge on this part. All the player data is actually owned by Proability and as a white label partner we have no access to this data. The affiliate program is closing down due to the uncertainty regarding the UK gambling license with Probaility and the POC tax. As a white label partner all affiliate costs, payments, transaction fees, Affiliate program fees and Affiliate manager fees all come out of our % of NGR which means we was running the affiliate site at a loss for a long time.
Another reason is that as a partner we have no control over the CRM, conversions or player rentention this is all handled by the operator partner e.g. Probability. As an affiliate myself i wouldnt push a site that didnt convert and conversions overall on the site has dropped over the last 12 months. i dont have no control over this.
If you have any concerns please speak to Danielle the AM at affiliates@madaboutslots.co.uk or feel free to PM me.

Probability has a UK licence from what I was able to gather. Where are the current players at your slots site being referred to when you cease operations? Are they simply being cashed out and closed? Are their balances being transferred to another skin? Are they being told that they can feel free to open an account elsewhere?

[Madabout Media]

Probability has a UK licence from what I was able to gather. Where are the current players at your slots site being referred to when you cease operations? Are they simply being cashed out and closed? Are their balances being transferred to another skin? Are they being told that they can feel free to open an account elsewhere?

The affiliate program is shutting down, we are waiting to know about the UK Licence and how this affects our white label site. No players are been forced to cash their money out of close there accounts as the site is still open. It is no longer profitable to sustain the affiliate backend. Players are free to open multiple accounts across all probability skins so thats up to them.

There is alot of uncertainty regarding the whitelabel program, and network of partner sites. And as such we can no longer afford to maintain an affiliate program and the overall costs of running said program when the site isnt coverting due to parts that i have no control over

[-Shay-]

So, just to make sure I "get it" because I "clearly lack knowledge" about how things work

1. The Mad About Slots affiliate program is closed effective today.
2. Affiliates who signed up under the promise of "lifetime revenue share" are going to be compensated through 31 October.
3. Mad About Slots (the gaming site) is going to remain open, players are going to continue to play if they so choose at Mad About Slots (the gaming site)
4. You're still the owner of Mad About Slots (the gaming site which is remaining open to players)
5. Affiliates who will not be compensated beyond 1 November 2014 despite the "lifetime revenue share" agreement even though the gaming site itself is going to remain open?

If I understand all of this correctly (and again, I'm "slow" so I might not "get it"), it sounds like you've shed the expense of paying affiliates who brought you business (no matter how small) and are remaining open. What exactly is it that I'm missing?

[Madabout Media]

1.) yes
2.) yes lifetime player value is the lifetime player value for active players when players sent from affiliate reg take £5 free and never deposit the LTV of that player is Zero. Also you will see that the LTV of players have suffered over the past 12 months an i have no say or control over this. As a white label partner all we do is build the online version and market it via seo, etc everything else is run by probability.
3.) Yes that correct, however i dont know the sites future or what GTECH's plans are for the white label program.
4.) I am part owner as are all white label partners with the main operator site.
5.) again correct as the program will be closed. As per the t & c's and the email sent to all affiliates.

All affiliates will be paid up till the 31st October and including yourself (no matter how small). The site will remain open until we know what GTECH's Probablity's plans are for the white label partners future. However if crm, conversions etc fail to be turned around then the site will close.

I came on here in regards to the data base comments you made, and tried also to provide additional infomation. All affiliates where emailed by the Affailiate manager and asked to get back to her with any concerns.