Im torn as to what this business really is

[Puma]

After taking much time over the last 7 years to work in an industry that is "online gambling" I find myself torn as to what I am really doing and trying desperately to determine if this is all worth it or not. Am I promoting a hobby or am I promoting an industry full of Scams, Lies & pure Ignorance ?

I am fairly sure it is the second option. This was realized finally when I was about to launch my latest site and could not reach more than two affiliate managers to answer my questions concerning promotions and software issues and the numerous complaints here at gpwa.

Over the past year I have been very active on the GPWA forum and have tried to make a living through all the crap the industry throws at us. No amount of money however is worth this complete and utterly nonsense.

Here are a few things I have noticed and I'm calling out names so don't be shy to reply.

C.A.P - Charging insane amounts of money to have your seal on a casino affiliate website when being part of the biggest industry scam of the year. You should be ashamed. Many small affiliates beg these casinos for some type of sponsorship and are often refused. Maybe if they didnt have to pay 25k or whatever the number is now for a seal that means absolutly nothing they could afford to help out with getting some smaller affiliates off the ground.

GPWA. - How long did you keep C-pays affiliate program listed here before removing them? How many complaints are required before you remove a sponor to your site? How many other affiliate programs are currently listed here that are ripping off affiliates or are promoting casinos that are obviously not good for this business?

Online Casino City - Why do you have so many rogued casinos in your directory? How much do you get paid to keep those rogued listings on your site? The site is excellent in the search engines and I bet the site makes lots of money, but at what price? Virtual casino? Casino Grand Bay? many more, but listed plain as day on your site. They have stolen millions of dollarrs from players and you think they deserve a spot of your site?

Casino Coins: Funny how so many depositing players go mssing from one month to the next. I have no proof yet I have this gut feeling you guys are cutting corners to save some money. Its ok, you're not the only program to do this over the years.

Top Game: I registred a complaint about these guys a year ago and it went unnoticed. I can't believe these crooks are even in business. The software is glitchy, the games totally suck and its obvious from a recent post that they are already scamming players with their " oh we had no idea the progressive slot was missing a winning combination reel" Dudes, you got caught now GTFO !

Poker Sites: How many people reading this realize the poker scam going on around the world? How many people reading this know that people are joining tables with their friends and using the phone and msn types of services to talk to each other and scamming other single players out of millions of dollars each year. Yet we promote this and make money off the misfortunes of others. Makes me sick to my stomach.

Affiliates not playing by the rules: Stop selling and farming emails ! I have gone through numerous emails accounts because I get about 500 emails a day from affiliates who dont play by the rules. I am sick and tired of playing fair and making less than these idiots.

How many winners? An affilate manager once said to me " the house always wins" and I took them off my site. He maybe didnt realize that some affiliates are players too. But he actually had a very valid point. How is it that I have won thousands at land based casinos over the past 10 years but not a cent from an online casino? Why is it that I can win at one while spending less than at another while spending more? Because online casinos don't pay out too much too often. Any casino that states they only take in 3% or 5% of every dollar than comes to them is 100% full of ****. Remember, I am an affiliate for online casinos. I see players lose alot of money every month. This one player "a whale" lost 20k before winning anything at a microgaming casino I was promoting. 23 players at casino coins casino won nothing. I win nothing. The list goes on. Yes there are winners but lets face it. Most players lose and lose big time.

Terms and conditions: I'm sorry but how many of us are promoting gambling sites with rediculous terms and conditions for their players. I am and so are all of you. How can we sleep at night knowing are pockets are being filled by these casinos who make it almost impossible to cash out.

The USA Government: George Bush you're an ass above anything else. or is he? Lets just say for the hell of it that he have a look at an affiliate of gambling forum like GPWA. So many problems, so many issues, so many dishonest companies. I would ban online gambling too !

Ecogra: Safe and fair by butt. This is yet another seal that means absolutly nothing and everybody knows it. How many other safe seals are around to make players and affiliates feel all cozy and safe. Nonsense.

The Rewards group & others: When are you going to give away that 65k that has been advertised on your casino sites for the past 4 years? Its a nice way to get emails. I can't seem to find one single winner for the 65k draw in google. But your terms clearly state

Entrants agree to allow Virtual City Casino the use of their names and/or likeness for advertising and publicity purposes, without additional compensation, unless prohibited by law.

Funny google didnt find anything. And this goes for other casinos as well who often are found to be offering cars and cash in exchange for signing up to email lists. I know some casinos give away prizes but how many are just advertising gimmicks?

Affiliate programs not paying on time: I work a full time job and for some strange reason they pay me and about 1000 other employees on time each and every time. Any reason you tards can't? How many more "software upgrades" are needed before you confess that you are sloppy and just screwed up. Next time you process payments late remember that we have bills and lives as well. Maybe you could try paying affiliates on time since we give so much of ours to you.

The Charge back issue: - Not sure about you but I'm sick of chargebacks. I have an Idea, do not accept credit cards. Make people use a service like moneybookers or neteller. Just an idea.

In closing I'd like to say that yes this was a total bitchfest and if you read the whole thing . well thank you. This didnt come over night. I thought about it for over a month hence why I have not been around. I don't think I can continue this course any longer. In my heart I do not believe in what I am selling to the public and because of that I think I am done in this business at least until there is some kind of regulation to prevent everyday people from getting "ripped" off.

Thanks

Chris

[casinojack]

Chris

I feel you man. i also am tired of being screwed over. 1998 was when I started affiliate marketing. In 2001 I opened a site and in 2 years was grossing 60 million a year. 2 years later we stopped that business for reason i cannot go into here. I now have over 400 sites selling and promoting different things.

I can only suggest you spend some time to look at other things to sell besides casino, gambling and poker. Only about 50% of my income is now from gaming, 25% is from niche markets (meaning the here today gone next year items, like Acai , etc) and 25% from the big guys, like amazon, google, ebay etc,

As far as this industry something needs to change. i was hoping the GAP would be a solution, But i think is off to become a money making scheme for the owner ( my personal view)

I am doing some consulting work with a few guys here in Costa Rica, but is hard to find people with a good reputation.

I had some ideas to get trust back from affiliates, but a l lot of the existing guys here, laughed at me...I'm not exaggerating, LAUGHED!!

I'm down to one last one, and if it works, great, but otherwise, I'm right behind you....

[pgaming]

Excellent post Chris and am sure many share the same opinions. An Industry worth billions and all we ask is but a grain of sand for our work.

greek39

[Anthony]

It's all a part of being involved in an unregulated industry.

[lots0]

pumacat Great post!

Like I said somewhere else...
"Money brings out the worst in people... and this business is ALL about money."

***

I get completely fed up with the corruption, thieving, lies and deception myself..

But I learned in my decades of working for the government... sometimes you can only effect change from the inside.

Keep your chin up... There are good programs out there that are run by honest and honorable people. Admittedly there are damn few of them... but they are out there.

Just don't trust what ANYONE says about the casinos, ESPECIALLY when they are in partnership with them.

IMO - Listen to the players.. They have no money interest and after all they are really the people we need to be loyal too.

[matted]

Things are what you make of them.

If you adopt a higher ethical standard you are sending the right message. I think too many people take business over their standards... when it is your livelihood, I understand it is a hard call to make sometimes.

Gambling in general has a house edge. Playing any card game, slot, etc has a built in house advantage over the long haul. That's the fact - so the entertainment is what you are buying.

[LiveCasinoPartners]

I hear you. That was exactly my first eight months in the industry. I felt the same. Finally, I stumbled on some good providers. I went from losing money every month to making money almost over night, just because I changed "partners".

It's all about choosing the right people to do business with.

[TheGooner]

Chris,

If you are not making enough money to make it worth your while - then you should get out quickly as you've obviously thought about this for a long time - and have produced a coherant argument.

Continuing in the same mode, and railing against unscrupulous practices will just make you annoyed - these companies will not change their practices in the short/medium term.

I could make some rebuttals on some of the points you've raised - but mainly I think this is because I suspect that we're inhabiting a slightly different gaming space being able to use respected and publically listed companies for the vast majority of our visitors, companies that have a significant brick n mortar presence as well as a good overall reputation.

Imagine if you were able to promote an online skin of major Vegas land based casinos - you just know the professionalism would be much better - and generally this is the current case for European players and affiliates with a good selection of profitable potential partners to choose from.

THE UIGEA and continuing US legislative attitudes towards online gaming and sports gambling have made it a murkier place for US players and affiliates.

However, instead of abandoning your skills, I'd listen to casinojack, and see whether you can bring your expertise to bear in other online affiliating sectors, where there are less murky issues, and where you are dealing with large professional companies - and you may find many of your issues are left behind ...

(although there will always be email harvestors, dodgy T&Cs, chargebacks from fraudulent users, and other things tha make you go ARRRRGGGGGHHHH - I fear that is the lot of the online marketeer ... )


However, for me, I am comfortable promoting just a handful of top respected sites, and am still getting a good buzz out of the "business" and so I'll continue in the industry for the time being.

Good luck in whatever you take up.


Paul (The Gooner)

[MichaelCorfman]

Online Casino City - Why do you have so many rogued casinos in your directory? How much do you get paid to keep those rogued listings on your site? The site is excellent in the search engines and I bet the site makes lots of money, but at what price? Virtual casino? Casino Grand Bay? many more, but listed plain as day on your site. They have stolen millions of dollarrs from players and you think they deserve a spot of your site?

Chris, you make many good points in your post but you have made some false assumptions about Online Casino City. First of all, in the case of the two specific examples you cite, Casino City doesn't get paid anything by The Virtual Casino or by Grand Bay Casino.

Casino City tries to list every casino and then provide information to help guide users. In the case of Grand Bay Casino, it is rogued on Casino City, so if you go to the page for it you will see a skull and crossbones on the page, and will see next to the skull and crossbones the text "We believe Casino Grand Bay is not reputable. Play at your own risk!"

Knowing which casinos to rogue and which ones not to rogue is certainly not always easy, so I'm sure we don't have it right in many cases, and suggestions and input on that front are always very welcome.

It is actually a goal of Casino City to rank high in the search engines for rogue properties so that users can see that we believe they are disreputable and should be avoided. High ranking pages for bad casinos with warnings are a really good thing for the industry in my opinion.

In the case of iGaming Software we actually researched and found a bunch of sites using their software and added them all to our directory so that we could provide guidance that they were disreputable. Before we did that there was actually nothing on the web that was negative in any way about a decent number of them because they were less popular sites that were below the radar of just about all webmasters.

Michael

[Puma]

Thank you for the reply Michael but I believe you are mistaken about a few things. Don't take this personally but it's part of the problem.

First off Virtual Casino found here has no such warnings.

http://online.casinocity.com/casinos/the-virtual-casino/

It is posted with information regarding bonuses, deposit methods and contact information. So if I was brand new to gambling online and I was to search for a virtual casino, visit this page, are you telling me online casino city has done its job to inform new players about this rogued casino who has stolen millions from unsuspecting players over the years?

Are you stating that Casino 1x2 which was rogued years ago by most affiliates as well as Casino Meister clearly states that players should not play there? That casino can be found here.

http://online.casinocity.com/casinos/casino1x2-com/

Why is there a number of rogued RTG casinos listed on that site? Why is Casino Extreme there when they are known theives among many affiliates?

The list goes on and on yet nobody says anything. Well I am saying something. Online casino CIty and many other sites promoting these casinos have some research to do.

[stgeorge]

One can spend one's time analyzing everything that's wrong with the industry, or you can accept that there are many caveats, work with them, around them or over them and try to add value somewhere along the way (which a lot of people do).

Any industry can be ripped to pieces if you just spend enough time looking for drawbacks. This industry is no exception, as you have rightly pointed out.

Some people probably feel more comfortable in an industry that's more regulated. This one might not be for them.

I think that at times, the online gaming fraternity could be accused of focusing too much on the negative.

[LuckyLove8]

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evils is that good men do nothing"


pumacat keep fighting! that was the clearest no bs post ive read on any webmaster board. You just become my new fkn #1 hero!

[Anthony]

"all that is necessary for the triumph of evils is that good men do nothing"

AMEN!!!

One of my favorate quotes by Edmund Burke

[Schankwart]

Brilliant rant, puma.

[MichaelCorfman]

I agree with you that there are casinos listed that are not marked as rogue that should be marked that way. I, like you, am not satisfied with how good a job is being done, and it is our goal to do better. Right now we have over 100 online gaming sites marked as rogue but I'm sure there should be more than that!

And, upon review, I agree with your assesment of the specific sites mentioned in the quoted post, and so all of those casinos, and a few more that are related are also now marked as being rogue on casino city. Please note that this means they will be marked a rogue right now in site search results and in lists of sites. However, since our pages about individual casinos are re-created in the middle of the night each day using current data, the actual casino pages will not mark them as rogue until the process that does that runs overnight tonight.

I would like to be clear, however, that although the properties you mentioned are listed on casino city, I don't view that we were promoting them. To explain what I mean, we do not have a relationship of any sort with these properties, and do not work with them at all. In fact, if you go to our page about any of these properties, and then try to visit the property, we suggest alternative properties that should be visited instead. I certainly agree that we provide information about them, but I disagree that we promoted them. And now, we are taking concrete action to make is clear they are not reputable by putting a skull and crossbone on our page about them.

Anyway, I want to be clear that I agree we are not doing as good a job as we could have been doing. The casinos you mentioned should have been marked as rogue by us even without your saying anything about them, and I have to take responsiblity for the fact that we should have done better. But also, please understand that it is or goal to do better. And please also understand that it is not our desire to steer players in the wrong direction. To the extent we might do that we undermine the value of our brand in the marketplace. Our desire is to have a strong brand as a reliable source of quality information.

Also, so you know, we try to cooperate as much as we can with Bryan over at Casinomeister. There are cases, such as iGaming Software, where we have provided him with additional sites to list, and there are other cases where we have let him know that some of the sites he has listed have gone out of business. That has been part of an overall process we have been going through to try to produce more comprehensive rogue lists that reflect the strengths that everyone brings to the table. I should also say, however, that there are instances where Bryan and I have different positions about whether it is appropriate to rogue a brand. As one simple example, Casinomeister rogued Golden Palace because of some of their marketing stunts, such as crashing the Olympics a few years ago. I can certainly support a view that was going too far, but it does not relate to the criteria I would have Casino City use for determining whether a property should be considered rogue or not.

Michael

Thank you for the reply Michael but I believe you are mistaken about a few things. Don't take this personally but it's part of the problem.

First off Virtual Casino found here has no such warnings.

http://online.casinocity.com/casinos/the-virtual-casino/

It is posted with information regarding bonuses, deposit methods and contact information. So if I was brand new to gambling online and I was to search for a virtual casino, visit this page, are you telling me online casino city has done its job to inform new players about this rogued casino who has stolen millions from unsuspecting players over the years?

Are you stating that Casino 1x2 which was rogued years ago by most affiliates as well as Casino Meister clearly states that players should not play there? That casino can be found here.

http://online.casinocity.com/casinos/casino1x2-com/

Why is there a number of rogued RTG casinos listed on that site? Why is Casino Extreme there when they are known theives among many affiliates?

The list goes on and on yet nobody says anything. Well I am saying something. Online casino CIty and many other sites promoting these casinos have some research to do.

[Puma]

Thank you michael for taking the time to address the issues I have raised. I would like to reply to one comment made however and let me make this clear, I am not here to create an argument, simple here to voice my opinion and to see that I do my share to see things are presented properly to the public.

I would like to be clear, however, that although the properties you mentioned are listed on casino city, I don't view that we were promoting them. To explain what I mean, we do not have a relationship of any sort with these properties, and do not work with them at all. In fact, if you go to our page about any of these properties, and then try to visit the property, we suggest alternative properties that should be visited instead. I certainly agree that we provide information about them, but I disagree that we promoted them. And now, we are taking concrete action to make is clear they are not reputable by putting a skull and crossbone on our page about them.

I have over the years signed up at many of the casino's affiliate programs on the online casino city website. Perhaps it would be a great benefit to all viewers if you had all rogued casinos in one spot and a link to them instead of in the actually directory. The directory is far superior to any casino listings I have ever seen and its a shame to have it cluttered with such evil casinos.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to clear things up. If only the rest of the industry was as quick as you are to fix things. We wouldn't be in the mess we are today.

[MichaelCorfman]

Thank you michael for taking the time to address the issues I have raised. I would like to reply to one comment made however and let me make this clear, I am not here to create an argument, simple here to voice my opinion and to see that I do my share to see things are presented properly to the public.

I'd like to be clear that I viewed what you were doing in this thread is identifying things that could be better within our industry. I always look at such comments in the spirit that they help create a focus for doing better, and that is something I strongly support. In my own case I spent some time improving what we are doing on casino city, and not just with respect to the specific sites you mentioned.

I have over the years signed up at many of the casino's affiliate programs on the online casino city website. Perhaps it would be a great benefit to all viewers if you had all rogued casinos in one spot and a link to them instead of in the actually directory. The directory is far superior to any casino listings I have ever seen and its a shame to have it cluttered with such evil casinos.

There is actually a way to find all of the gaming sites we have rogued. This is the URL online.casinocity.com/rogue/. However, at the moment we don't feature that list with anything like a prominent link on the home page of the site, although I do think it would be a reasonable suggestion to do that.

I'm not sure I understand the issue having the casinos that we have marked as rogue listed the way they are because I think we do a pretty clear job of identifying them whenever they appear. If you look at the rogue list above, I think it is hard to miss that they should be avoided. The same style is used no matter where rogue sites are included in listings. As a good example look at our list showing the most popular sites using RTG software. At the moment we show 7 of the top 25 RTG sites with skulls and crossbones. And if you click the link to show the next 25 sites, 10 of those 25 have skulls and crossbones. If we remove those sites from the directory then it would not be so clear to someone looking through the sites that you have to be carefull with RTG software licensees because there are a fair number of bad operators using that software.

Michael

[giggles7p]

Micheal, i have to ask a question, and hope you do not get upset with me for doing so,

But, are your pages that have Grand Bay advertised, with"crossbones' symbol a link that is clickable for any online players that choose to "take their chances" with this casino because of the bonuses they promote? If it is, then i feel you are doing a disservice to other affiliates and the business, by still giving the players the option of downloading and playing at this rogued casino, and you will still be earning an income from them if you have a clickable banner with your link attached? So you may think they are rogued, and warn players, but feel its ok to still earn money from them? I mean i don't think you have a banner and link up for nothing, right?

sorry if I over stepped or I am wrong in what i am thinking about this issue, if i am wrong and you are not still earning affiliate commission from these crooks, please tell me and then you can send me to my corner, and i will shut up.

Pat

[MichaelCorfman]

Micheal, i have to ask a question, and hope you do not get upset with me for doing so,

But, are your pages that have Grand Bay advertised, with"crossbones' symbol a link that is clickable for any online players that choose to "take their chances" with this casino because of the bonuses they promote? If it is, then i feel you are doing a disservice to other affiliates and the business, by still giving the players the option of downloading and playing at this rogued casino, and you will still be earning an income from them if you have a clickable banner with your link attached? So you may think they are rogued, and warn players, but feel its ok to still earn money from them? I mean i don't think you have a banner and link up for nothing, right?

sorry if I over stepped or I am wrong in what i am thinking about this issue, if i am wrong and you are not still earning affiliate commission from these crooks, please tell me and then you can send me to my corner, and i will shut up.

Pat

Pat,

We don't have any business relationship with any casinos that we mark as rogue and so we do not earn any affiliate revenue from any such site because we do not have any affiliate relationship with such sites. Please don't say we advertise them when what we have is a page with information about them together with a skull and crossbones and a statement that we think they are disreputable. Believe me, the online gaming sites to which we do this definitely don't feel we are advertising them. If they become aware of what we have done their response is always to be angry with us because what we are doing is bad for their business.

We try our hardest to get anyone considering going to such a site to go to other sites where we do have affiliate relationships. We are actually in the midst of implementing further enhancements in this area to pop-up a window to make it even clearer that a property is rogue that we plan to deploy sometime in the next month. From our perspective it is both bad for the player if they go to such sites because they will likely have a bad experience and bad for us because we have no possibility of earning any affiliate revenue.

Michael

[giggles7p]

Thank you Micheal and once again i apologize if I over stepped or misunderstood what your site does. But i still don't understand why you make it possible to go to these sites by clicking the links, I admit i don't know anywhere near what you or other affiliates know, so i ask questions sometimes that may look stupid to the seasoned affiliate, but i do not understand why? You could have these sites rogued as you do, with pics, etc..but with no link taking them to these sites.

I don't want to **** anyone off, so I will not ask anymore questions that may make this look like I trying to start crap, believe me i am not, i am just asking to learn the whys and why nots to do somethings, and what is exceptable and what is not among my peers and mentors.

Thanks for your time and answering these questions for me.

Sincerely
pat