Video Slots Casino affiliates - is this normal?

Vladi

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I can see several problems here.

The percentage you have earned on gross deposits is very low compared to many other programs where we earn anywhere from 20-30% of gross deposits. However this could be explained by a big winner, or a player that regularly withdraws and redeposits. As they don't report withdrawals you have to look at the gross revenue numbers instead. Though I still think it still seems low.

It is true that they display and itemise the fees charged to your account. However nowhere that I can find in their terms and conditions is there a definition of how any of these fees are calculated. "Gross Revenue" and "Net revenue" are mentioned but never defined in the terms. Looking at those numbers it would appear that:

Net Revenue = Gross Revenue - Bonus Cost - License Fee - Bank Fee - Cashback

Gross Revenue is unknown. Most probably it is just: Total amount wagered - total amount won.

But obviously the big hole here is what all of those numbers mean?
- Bank Fee: there appears to be no correlation between the deposits made in a month and the bank fee amount. I guess they could be charging you on both deposits and withdrawals, but you cannot know that because they don't report the amount of withdrawals.
- Bonus Cost: another mystery. Is it the amount given as a bonus, or a percentage of it or something else? No idea because once again they don't define it.
- License Fee: this is obviously not a flat rate as it doesn't match up month to month with your numbers. Does it depend on which games are played? Again, no idea as they don't define it.

So I disagree with this statement as clearly a lot of information is not given:
We don’t hide any information. – We don’t cover with different words in attempt to confuse our affiliates.

Now their cashback system is something odd based on the amount wagered and from what I have read elsewhere it is possible for a player to get more cashback than they deposit. Great if you're a player, not great if you're an affiliate. The casino is effectively letting players freeroll on your commission and it can only ever be negative from an affiliate's point of view because the player can't lose more than the cashback they are paid, they can either lose it all back (which is a net 0 for you) or win (negative for your commission).

Example:
- Player deposits €100 and loses it, no other fees applicable for simplicity. You would earn €25.
- However the casino gives the player let's say €20 in cashback. If the player doesn't like the casino and never comes back and plays with it then net revenue is only €80, so your commission reduces.
- If she wins €100 then the casino is at €0 gross revenue. But you are at -€20 net revenue because it seems that the casino deducts the cashback from the gross revenue. i.e. €100 deposited - €100 won - €20 cashback = -€20. See how the casino didn't pay a cent for that cashback? You as the affiliate paid it, and its going to cancel out commission you may earn from other players.
- But if the player loses all the cashback instead then you earn the original €25 on €120 of gross revenue. This shows that the percentage of gross that you earn at this casino is always going to be lower than at other casinos because the calculations are affected by the cashback they pay all the time.

Also I might be wrong on this but I believe that the player can continue earning more cashback while wagering the cashback they have been paid. My guess is that the casino would counter this by saying that the cashback encourages the players to keep coming back and playing, which it may well do. But the question an affiliate needs to consider is does it encourage them to deposit more, and enough to cover the hit that it is taking from your commission every month?

If I had to sum up, I would say this casino is a good deal for players, but bad for affiliates, especially on the default revnue share which is abysmal considering the fees deducted. Most casinos running Net Entertainment or Quickfire games deduct a large slice off gross revenue before calculating commissions. We have talked about it on here before. Don't work with programs that are taking 20 or 30% off the top for less than 40% because 40% of 70% is only 28% of gross.
 
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Chipy

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Another question that needs to be asked regarding the bonus costs.

What happens when a player is receiving a free spins bonus from the casino and loses it, does it also increase the bonus costs and being deducted from my final commission?

For example:

A player received 10 free spins, assuming each spin is worth $1, if the player loses all of the spins.. what will be the bonus costs and what would be the amount of $ that will be deducted from my commission?
 

Vladi

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Gross Revenue should be €10 because they gain €10 then wager until they lose it all. This made me realise my formula for gross up above was probably not right so I amended it so it is based on wagers. So for example they wager €100 in total with the free spins and eventually win back €90 and their balance hits €0.

If my assumptions about their calculations are right, you would then be charged €10 in bonus costs in the net revenue calculation so the effect on Net Revenue is 0. So you should not get double billed. However if they are paying a license fee based on the games played then you could well be in a negative situation. If for example they had to pay €2 in license fees for every €100 wagered on the game your net revenue due to that bonus would be -€2. They same would apply to cashback payments that are wagered. This could be really nasty because if both cashback and license fees are based on wagers then its a double whammy - the more they wager, the more cashback they get and the more license fees you pay, all of which reduces net revenue.

One other concern I have is that I can't find anywhere on their site that states whether cashback payments ever expire. This is very important because if they don't expire then cashback that is never wagered permanently reduces your earnings. It is inevitable that it will happen as some players will not bother to come back and play with their cashback if they forget about it, or its a small amount, or they just don't like the casino. In fact Gambling Wages used to run a scam to rip off their affiliates (they used to call it "Manager credits") by deliberately crediting bonuses to dormant player accounts that were tagged to affiliates that just sat there forever unused and reducing the net revenue. I am not saying VS is doing that deliberately but if cashback does not expire it has the same effect.
 
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mattsgame

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I honestly don't think you are seeing the whole picture here. Yes it's 15% of GROSS, but still 25% of NETT.
I don't know any programs who pay based on gross income. Just because Video Slots actually show you all the deductions (where most programs don't) that doesn't make them the "bad guys".

Simple answer is, if you don't like it, don't promote them = less competition for me! ;)

Or ask them for a bigger % of nett.
I think I'll be trying that soon - though at the moment March is SERIOUSLY negative, so probably not a good time to ask!
Gross Rev -768
Bonuses -1,051
Licence -81
Bank fee -55
Cashback -102

So the casino is nett -£2,057 in the red, thanks to being listed on my sites! :eek:

KK

KK I see the whole picture mate. Most programs do not cut your earnings down so low even with fees and everything thrown in, maybe to 20% but not as low as 15%.

Hello Everyone,

Lucas is changing the facts a little bit, he's saying that ALL other affiliate programs are taking the same fees - WRONG, When I asked him to give me examples of other casinos who takes the same fees he did not answer and avoided my question. I work with a lot of other affiliate programs from a variety of different softwares an none of them besides Emu Casino is taking such HUGE fees.

I can understand that there are winners here and there.. so one month you go negative and another month earn extra..

However, as you can see in my screen shots, at Video Slots Casino every month you are getting less than what you would have gotten from another program for that kind of deposits, this simply doesn't make sense..

That is because Emu Casino and Videoslots are sisters.
 

vs_lucas

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Hi All,

Good afternoon.

Bank Fee = sms cost when player deposit, chargebacks and withdrawal fees.

Bonus Cost = bonus cost is paid out bonuses and free spins winnings. If the player doesn't win anything on their spins, there will be no cost.
All winnings the player loses will end up at bets - wins. Casino races payments is also included in bonus cost.

License Fee = This is the exact amount of fees we pay to microgaming and other operatos for each game. Please note that we pay different fees on different games.

Gross = bets - wins.

Cashback = 25% of all bets a player makes. We give them 25% of our profit. Therefore, if a game has 96% rtp we give 1% of the bets to the players loyalty which is wagering free and does not expire, and is completely withdrawable right away.

We deduct the exact expenses, nothing more, nothing less. Other programs deduct a fixed admin fee ( usual 20 - 35% ) + bonus costs. Then it will be the same on all players. At Videoslots, you will earn more on some players an less on others depending on how they play.

Moreover, our Free Spins also have a higher value than others. Usual netent spins are around 10 cent per spin, ours is 60 cent. that also makes quite a substantial difference when looking at the bonus costs. Having said that, some casinos also do have higher free spins values too.

So, one must keep all of these aspects in mind.

Kind Regards,
Lucas
 
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sasa

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I am not sure that profit based on deposits is a way to measure a performance for affiliate program (at least not on small deposit amounts), but for comparison my Video Slots is about 9% and Bet365 is 22%.
 

slotplayer

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you should be liable for 25% of the costs across the board, bonuses, cashback, lic fees, bank fees.

I meant to say this a long time ago, this not a correct statement because its 25% commission of net profit and net profit is what was earned by the casino after all overhead is deducted not 25% of it.
 

PaaskeUK

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Could someone from Videoslots please contact me urgent?? Been sending several emails to Kim Lindsjo who is supposed to be new AM after Lucas but not getting any replies? Also not general email adr for videoslots bit disappointing.
 

PaaskeUK

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Also how come videoslots is still using that silly affiliate backend?? I am sure I read somewhere they would finally get a proper seperate affiliate backend. Maybe I am wrong can not remember is Lucas told me about or where I saw this. But Videoslots is a top brand one of the best out there. But must say I am VERY close at dropping them also because of looking at silly stats in that backend and it is really not a great way of working for them. Find it very confusing using links amd banners as well!
 

KasinoKing

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Also how come videoslots is still using that silly affiliate backend?? I am sure I read somewhere they would finally get a proper seperate affiliate backend. Maybe I am wrong can not remember is Lucas told me about or where I saw this. But Videoslots is a top brand one of the best out there. But must say I am VERY close at dropping them also because of looking at silly stats in that backend and it is really not a great way of working for them. Find it very confusing using links amd banners as well!
Correct on all levels.
Kim did always answer my e-mails in June & July - even when I kept pestering him about the new back-end (which was "coming soon" in July...).
But eventually I got fed up with chasing as I got the impression nothing was happening - at least, not quickly.
I assume you've checked you spam folder...?

They DID finally get some usable banners in July - so I switched out the home-made ones I had been using up 'til then, to their proper ones.
They seem to be tracking OK.

I came close to dropping them too, but glad I didn't because the last 2 months were quite good with them, though September is not great so far...

KK
 

NDG

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The affiliate back-end is definitely annoying, and then you can get your account locked
if you access the web site from a country that is restricted from playing at the casino,
even if you have no intention of accessing the casino, and only want to check affiliate stats.
 
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