Affiliate account closures

[GCPortals]

Over the past several months we have been experiencing problems with some affiliate companies that have resulted in account closures. We have dealt with over 500 affiliate companies over the past 20 years and are very concerned about what we see as a trend. In the past it seemed to be the new casinos that find themselves in a position where they need to take advantage of affiliates. Unfortunately, this behavior and strategy seems to be spreading to larger more established brands.

We feel that there is insufficient reason for the closure, and that the affiliate companies are being opportunistic. Their motivation on their part looks to be that they want to keep our players and stop paying commission. They say that they have information or a reason to close our account but they refuse to provide specifics. They use loose reasons like:

One of your players violated one of our terms. But they refuse to indicate who or what. Does it seem fair or logical to close the door on us at the possibility of one player violating their terms? What about all the other good players? Betfair Affiliates, Betsson Group, Bet Victor Affiliates.

You have poor quality traffic. When asked what they really mean, we don’t get a good answer. For this reason, we have to deduct what this means. We don’t direct people to sites by tricking them so this can’t be it. When we looked into our member stats we noticed that we had a few players win a few larger amounts leading up to account closure. So, what they are really saying is that Poor Quality traffic is when people win. I actually had one casino be honest about this and say that a couple of our players were winning too often. Does it make sense to be in the online Gambling industry and have expectations that players will not go on winning streaks once in a while? Don’t the players have to win once in a while? Betfair Affiliates, Betsson Group, Bet Victor Affiliates.

There are new UK compliance rules. We had a couple of casinos review us and say that we are 100% compliant and that they are happy with our compliance to and then proceed to close our accounts right after claiming the closure was because of the UK compliance rules. Does this make any sense? 188Bet Affiliates, Branders Partners, Gala Partners, Ladbrokes, Coral Affiliates, Totesport Affiliates.

Where is this industry going? Is it the new normal that casino's look for any reason to try to justify the closure of an account, provide excuses and then refuse to provide any credible information. Do these casino's grow off the backs of the affiliate traffic and then once they are big enough close the accounts? Is this the natural evolution? We need you until we don’t need you. Can’t we get back to where casino’s and affiliates get back to working together to promote the credibility of the online industry and prosper together.

[PromoteCasino]

One of your players violated one of our terms. But they refuse to indicate who or what. Does it seem fair or logical to close the door on us at the possibility of one player violating their terms? What about all the other good players? Betfair Affiliates, Betsson Group, Bet Victor Affiliates.

HI Richard, that is completely out of your control, what are you supposed to do about that.

When it comes to the "poor traffic quality" I see that as bonus abusers who are really not viable as a punter. Once again unless you are promoting freebies as a whole you will not have control over them. Of course, there are the winning players as well it happens everywhere where one or two are lucky.

Now as for UK compliance, in my eyes this is the biggie when it comes to closing accounts. There are several threads here about how there is no consistency when it comes to show how a promotion should be promoted with the t&c's correctly. As far as I am concerned I feel I am about as compliant as I could be and have been told so by all that I have on site. But that could change at a moments notice on a whim.

In all, it is shocking what these programs will do to shaft you out of your rightful future earnings.

[Sherlock]

Is not there a typo with Betfair Affiliates, Betsson Group, Bet Victor Affiliates claiming You have poor quality traffic and One of your players violated one of our terms?

Where is this industry going? Is it the new normal that casino's look for any reason to try to justify the closure of an account, provide excuses and then refuse to provide any credible information. Do these casino's grow off the backs of the affiliate traffic and then once they are big enough close the accounts? Is this the natural evolution? We need you until we don’t need you. Can’t we get back to where casino’s and affiliates get back to working together to promote the credibility of the online industry and prosper together.

Yes it is the natural evolution. Game theory and cheating. Simple cost/benefit analysis. Human life was ever like this.


We can not go back, we can just go forward, that is also human life.

I am pessimist but not absolutely. There are still ways how to turn it around:
Support grey and black operators who honor affiliate deals. Support bitcoin casinos. Educate the audience. Do not promote big brands who steal for chump change. Count into factor the longevity of the accounts. Be prepared for bad years.

The big companies in regulated market got their share and now they will milk it. At the same time they will start to bleed. We can not prevent them from stealing, but we can help them bleed more and faster. There is no point to give them one player more than is needed. They have to deliver results to shareholders and they have to grow and grow. They already have not much space. Shrinking or slow growing yields are a problem for them.

Beat me, but I decided to give more space to 1xbet. They steal from big winners, we know it. I hope that they will stop. They are fair to affiliates. They score big only in Portugal, but suddenly that **** country player has much more value than UK player.

[vardan]

Closing affiliate accounts is a temporary solution for big operators. They will always need targeted and well converting traffic that affiliate websites provide. They need money to compete, to pay increased taxes(in some countries) and shareholders, etc. By closing affiliate accounts and keeping the commissions of the affiliates they resolve only short term problems.

I guess this situation won’t last long, even well known operators that closed their aff programs and stole thousands of webmasters will reopen them and I hope in that case no one will promote them again.

The industry is in change/reconstruction process, the affiliates at this moment are only observing and we will continue doing that until we participate in the process.