Casumo Casino & the SOW Scam?

[Madz]

I have been an affiliate with Casumo for several years and have seen most of my earnings (€4-5k per month ) disappear over the last 8-12 months due to the new SOW requirements they have. I have also lost all my VIP players in this time which seems strange and now hardly any players seem to bet. My monthly earnings very rarely go above €500pm now, most of the time its a less than €100.

I have been following the reviews on TrustPilot - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.casumo.com and many of the people leaving them are complaining about the SOW and how they feel its a scam. Many reviewers claim they have to jump through all sorts of hoops and still have their accounts closed. Its like Casumo are judge and jury with these SOW investigations and people dont seem to have a leg to stand on when they make their decision to keep peoples funds.

I have been wondering lately what happens to these funds?
Do Casumo get to keep then?
Is there any governing body that monitors these SOW investigations by casinos?
What can people do to appeal and what are the chances of them being successful?
Can they even get their money back if Casumo refuse their SOW evidence?

I have also been thinking about affiliates and how we are effected with this whole process. If the SOW investigation refuses to pay the player and the casino gets to keep the winnings does the rev share of the amount won go back to the affiliates account? If they had this deducted because the player won only to be denied payout at a later date does the affiliate get their share back? I doubt it but its food for thought...

There seems to be nothing anyone can do about this shambles and as ever the casinos are the only winners.

Casumo seem to have damaged their reputation beyond repair in the UK now but I imagine they wont be in the UK market for much longer. They already refuse to pay affiliates for any new UK players that sign up.

Im interested in everyone's thoughts and experiences with Casumo and other brands regarding this.

[TheGooner]

What is SOW ?

[nwalker]

What is SOW ?

Source of Wealth

[branders11]

At the end of the day, All these programs are ruing it for them selves. If you have a site ranking well and delivering FTDs and a good amount of traffic to any brands in the UK. You should be charging tenancy and not just taking an RS.

In my honest opinion all affiliates on RS are getting screwed in many different ways. I will never ever work with a brand on pure RS.

[Sherlock]

In my honest opinion all affiliates on RS are getting screwed in many different ways. I will never ever work with a brand on pure RS.

Nobody will pay me decent 4 figures per player. Which is my lifetime value of player on RS. Yes I am 100% getting screwed, I should get maybe 5 figures...

--------------------

Was not Casumo fined for lax SOW? Maybe I remember it wrong. Btw they had great product. But VC funded projects tend to end badly.

[worthy]

But VC funded projects tend to end badly.

What is VC funded project?

[TheGooner]

In my honest opinion all affiliates on RS are getting screwed in many different ways. I will never ever work with a brand on pure RS.

Like Sherlock my older players are still active and probably at the higher end of the value spectrum.
Certainly far more valuable than mobile phone players.

It's important to get the deal that suits the players that you bring into a site.
For us - we have low volume / high value players.

Because of that low volume AM's are not interested in tenancy deals (used to be standard 10-15 years ago) ..
But our exiting RS deal partners know the value of our players.

[Sherlock]

What is VC funded project?

VC = venture capital

Uber/tesla/startup style. You get a lot of money from investors for the project and you hope it will work. Since "funding is secured" you do not care (at least for some time), to make money. The project is pulled "from the above".

Conversely there are business projects, where the purpose is profit and not another rounds of investments. So it does not grow that quickly, but it goes quickly from black to red numbers.

[branders11]

I completely agree that the value of players on RS is a must and worth more.

But if you charge a tenancy for these affiliate programs they will think twice before they try to screw you as they also have something to lose here aswell.

the affiliate is taking all the risk when we work with other programs, Charging them the tenancy gives the affiliate a solid safety net and makes sure our livelihood's are not at risk.

Lots of these companies/programs think of affiliates as just a little bonus to get some traffic, When infact we are the back bone of he industry. Its a joke what some of these programs are doing.

[Sherlock]

If we were the bone, we would have some respect.

I understand the symbolical power of the listing fees, but if you need to play those games with your partners, where the major inflow is still RS, you are just picking the ones that will screw you with even higher probability.

My strategy is let everyone screw me - the best is if sooner than later. It is better to pick up a diamond in a pile of sh1t than trying to squeeze something from the excrements.

[branders11]

If we were the bone, we would have some respect.

I understand the symbolical power of the listing fees, but if you need to play those games with your partners, where the major inflow is still RS, you are just picking the ones that will screw you with even higher probability.

My strategy is let everyone screw me - the best is if sooner than later. It is better to pick up a diamond in a pile of sh1t than trying to squeeze something from the excrements.

Yeah i get what your saying. But sadly thats just how it is these days. 10 years ago i was not worried at all. But these days no one is getting free traffic, no one.

[FriendsofDench]

Hey Madz,

It is great that you are bringing this up, as I am sure a lot of the affiliates serving the UK market must have felt the responsible gaming bitterness.

Until recently we as a B2B technology provider were providing plotform services to 138.co.uk before closing down.

It is really up to the procedure set in house and most importantly is what acc managers communicate to affiliates.

It is in your rights to ask for such information and it is rightful that the operator provides it to you.

There are several scenarios:

If SOW is triggered on 2.5k GBP deposits the account has be frozen and SOW requested.

1. You are entitled to receive the affiliate commission generated up to this moment.
2. Any profit generated above that means that the operator has violated the UKGC requirements and failed to lock the account...we all know how this goes.
3 If they let the player keep on depositing and playing, the operator needs to refund the last deposited amount that led to the trigger and pay the commision up this certain moment. It will most probably keep the balance and pay royalties the gaming providers.

UKGC makes regular audits to licensee, and they dig deep into the wallet logs and procedures of the operator. I am sure you have seen the news lately Betway, Wishmaker and even the biggies failed to adhere to the procedures of SOW and they suffered badly..

At the end of the day you can request from your account manager to send you on monthly basis the players that trigerres the SOW or got self-excluded or timeout-ed and make the math.

We are in a process of obtaining our UKGC license, and I am happy to show you how we plan to handle this in our in house affiliate software.

[casionmark]

Hi -

Where is your £2.5k figure coming from? Is that just an example or a fixed value at which SOW checks are required for all UK operators? I've never totally understood the process and assumed it was pretty arbitrary from operator side.

Mark

[wonderpunter]

They were fined 5.8 million So i guess they doubled down,

[wonderpunter]

At the end of the day, All these programs are ruing it for them selves. If you have a site ranking well and delivering FTDs and a good amount of traffic to any brands in the UK. You should be charging tenancy and not just taking an RS.

In my honest opinion all affiliates on RS are getting screwed in many different ways. I will never ever work with a brand on pure RS.

All my best deals are revshare-.. if you have good traffic then revhsare is king.. if you push bonuses and low value then CPA is the way to go but it never lasts

[FriendsofDench]

Hi -

Where is your £2.5k figure coming from? Is that just an example or a fixed value at which SOW checks are required for all UK operators? I've never totally understood the process and assumed it was pretty arbitrary from operator side.

Mark

Hi Mark,

You can find it in the UKGC´s The prevention of money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism Guidance for remote and non-remote casinos Fifth edition January 2020

And more precisely:

6.9 Regardless of whether they have established a business relationship with the customer, suspect money laundering or terrorist financing, or doubt the veracity or adequacy of documents or information previously obtained for the purposes of identification or verification, casino operators must also apply CDD measures in relation to any transaction that amounts to €2,000 or more, whether the transaction is executed in a single operation or in several operations which appear to be linked.73

6.10 'Transaction' consists of: • the wagering of a stake, including: o the purchase from, or exchange with, the casino of tokens for use in gambling at the casino o payment for the use of gaming machines o the deposit of funds required to take part in remote gambling, or

• the collection of winnings, including the withdrawal of funds deposited to take part in remote gambling or winnings arising from the staking of such funds. 74 6.11 In determining whether a transaction amounts to €2,000 or more, casino operators do not need to take account of winnings from a previous transaction which had not been collected from the casino, gaming machine or remote gambling, but are being re-used in the transaction in question.75 This means that casino operators do not need to include restaked winnings (so called 'recycled winnings', 'turnover' or 'churn') when determining whether a customer has reached the €2,000 threshold

http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk...th-Edition.pdf

[casionmark]

OK - I see. At 2k Euros then. So, that says - any player who deposits 2k or more must have the funds verified, and their ID I assume, and the account is frozen until this happens. I didn't realise the account was frozen too.

However, assuming a customer has documents ready it must be pretty quick to verify where the funds are coming from and you would think it would be in casumo's interest to get this done as quickly as possible. Can only assume they were freaked by their fine and being overly cautious. No wonder they've scaled down UK.

From what I've read the SOW checks may become centralised under a new gambling act with a 3rd party independently verifying deposits when the customer reaches a much, much lower threshold. So it might not be in the operator's hands soon anyway.

[Madz]

OK - I see. At 2k Euros then. So, that says - any player who deposits 2k or more must have the funds verified, and their ID I assume, and the account is frozen until this happens. I didn't realise the account was frozen too.

However, assuming a customer has documents ready it must be pretty quick to verify where the funds are coming from and you would think it would be in casumo's interest to get this done as quickly as possible. Can only assume they were freaked by their fine and being overly cautious. No wonder they've scaled down UK.

From what I've read the SOW checks may become centralised under a new gambling act with a 3rd party independently verifying deposits when the customer reaches a much, much lower threshold. So it might not be in the operator's hands soon anyway.

From many of the people complaining about Casumo casino claim they were able to deposit much larger amounts than the £/€2000 mentioned above. They also claim the SOW was only requested when they tried to withdraw their winnings! Many also claim they could still bet with that money after requesting their withdrawal while the SOW investigation was taking place... some claim they then lost all of their winnings... Both of these seem claims go against the UKGC rules it would seem.

I admit I have not experienced this with any other operators but I have followed Casumo casino as I have lost most of my income from them as a result of their methods so I am more aware of how their customers feel they have been treated as a result.

[cartagines]

At the end of the day, All these programs are ruing it for them selves. If you have a site ranking well and delivering FTDs and a good amount of traffic to any brands in the UK. You should be charging tenancy and not just taking an RS.

[casionmark]

Yea, surprises me though because I always though Casumo was a pretty solid operation with good player values etc. Sounds like a bit of a mess now. Not sure if inconsistencies in policies are partly down to inconsistencies in the way UKGC enforce rules and dish out fines.

From many of the people complaining about Casumo casino claim they were able to deposit much larger amounts than the £/€2000 mentioned above. They also claim the SOW was only requested when they tried to withdraw their winnings! Many also claim they could still bet with that money after requesting their withdrawal while the SOW investigation was taking place... some claim they then lost all of their winnings... Both of these seem claims go against the UKGC rules it would seem.

I admit I have not experienced this with any other operators but I have followed Casumo casino as I have lost most of my income from them as a result of their methods so I am more aware of how their customers feel they have been treated as a result.