Centrebet Affiliates Rogued

[Louis_IncomeAccess]

Hi guys,

Appreciate the feedback here.

Tryme1, I think inspiration's post should back up our claims that Sportsbook affiliate program's run on much tighter margins than affiliates might think. The fact is, the industry is very competitive, and as such, programs have bid away their margins considerably. Just look at the other Australian programs that closed over the last year. Again though, we need to emphasize that the changes that were put into place were specifically aimed at certain abuses that happen in the industry, and have nothing to do with the profitability of affiliates that promote and send players in good faith. Centrebet has excellent overall player retention and profit from the majority of affiliates. However, because of the tight margins discussed (and considering the earlier example of paying for profits while absorbing 100% of losses), a few bad apples can significantly affect the overall profitability.

Dominque, I understand your concerns, but again, the quotas were never meant to be put into play all affiliates, and especially not for casino affiliates, because that area of the business does not suffer from these abuses, which are specific to Sportsbook. Allow me to explain more clearly the issue:

Affiliate with low traffic site refers 3 players in 1st month. In the following 11 months, they refer no players. Over those 11 months, half the time the players generate positive revenue, and half the time negative. When they generate positive revenue, CB pays commissions. When they generate negative, CB absorbs the loss. Thus over the year, the affiliate earns a healthy commission, while Centrebet takes a loss. In this situation, Centrebet needs to have a way to protect themselves from losing this money, or they will have less overall money with which to pay other affiliates that are continuing to drive traffic.

As mentioned before, we accept all your concerns as valid, and because of your feedback, we will be working with AGD to adjust the T&Cs to better address this issue while protecting affiliates who promote in good faith. Again, if anyone should want to speak about this in further detail, please don't hesitate to contact us personally to set up a time to chat.

[dominique]

the quotas were never meant to be put into play all affiliates, and especially not for casino affiliates, because that area of the business does not suffer from these abuses, which are specific to Sportsbook.

Then you need to specify this in your terms.

Also, you just can't do it retroactively, that's breach of contract. You can apply it going forward for new affiliates if you think you will fare better with it.

Just be explicit in the terms as to who and what they apply to. As is, you have a blanket term.

[Louis_IncomeAccess]

Agreed. It was a slash and burn maneuver. We accept the critique, and will be working to fix it.

[Adrian-LiveCasinoPartners]

For the last year I have been the affiliate director for LiveCasinoParnters. It's an entirely different story when looking from this side of the fence. The margins are much smaller than anticipated, and I think that affiliates would be surprised to learn how much they are making at our program. That being said, I am just beginning understand the dynamics the programs face in the online gaming environment.

Maybe you could help explain why the minimum player rule would help counteract fraud? I understood the scenario where an affiliate with only a few new players could possibly have fluctuations of revenue (can, but not all the time). These fluctuations combined with a no-negative carryover would certainly provide an overall positive revenue for the affiliate, and a net loss for the program. I get that. The same would be true no matter if there were new players or not. New players doesn't mean that they will lose money.

I think if you explained the reasoning more clearly you would find less resistance.

When we started LCP, we came across the decision to offer no-negative carry over or not. We decided to have a negative carry over program for the same reasons you mentioned in your thread. We are now implementing a "high roller" term to protect players from large winners. I think this hybrid model that protects affiliates and assures a stable business model is a good compromise. Out of that compromise we were able to pay affiliates more than 5% more revenue than if we had a no-negative carryover.

I hope that your program rebounds soon. I am sure it will. You guys are with Andy, and all will be sorted soon.

Finding a compromise between a stable program business model and affiliates is going to be a challenge if your program is expected to lose revenue. If you can avoid it, try not to take it away from the affiliates.

Best of luck.

[Vladi]

I get the feeling Louis is afraid of spelling out exactly what the "fraud" problem is. So its most probably affiliates that refer themselves or their friend but no-one else, then reclaim 30% (whatever) of any losses through affiliate payments, which is way more than the bookie's edge.

Oh no! oops! Gee I just gave everyone on the internet the idea to do that too! Come on Louis we're not all that stupid.

[Guard Dog]

We are working with Centrebet to determine a good path forward and they have shown a willingness to work with us to return their program to an affiliate-friendly set of terms and conditions.

We hope to have more information very soon.

[Louis_IncomeAccess]

Hi Vladi,

As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the major abuse issues that we've had to deal with in Sportsbook is this:

Affiliate with low traffic site refers 3 players in 1st month. In the following 11 months, they refer no players. Over those 11 months, half the time the players generate positive revenue, and half the time negative. When they generate positive revenue, CB pays commissions. When they generate negative, CB absorbs the loss. Thus over the year, the affiliate earns a healthy commission, while Centrebet takes a loss. In this situation, Centrebet needs to have a way to protect themselves from losing this money, or they will have less overall money with which to pay other affiliates that are continuing to drive traffic.

As Adrian mentioned (great post by the way Adrian!), this is a major issue when affiliates really just referred themselves or a friend, and are using the affiliate revenue to wipe out the bookie's edge. Since in reality, these type of sites have little to no traffic, Centrebet is paying a substantial amount for a placement that does not have substantial value.

Again, we've been in dialogue with AGD this week and hope to have an affiliate friendly resolution very soon.

[Louis_IncomeAccess]

Ooops, sorry Vladi I realized I attributed the line about the bookies edge to Adrian but it was actually yours. Sorry about that!

[dominique]

Don't you have a clause that prohibits affiliates from signing up as players?

Anyway, it looks like the intent of the clause in dispute is much different from the actual effect. That should of course be fixable.

[Louis_IncomeAccess]

We do have that clause, under rake back schemes. However, it can be difficult to prove that a particular player is linked via family or friend relationship, since many fraudsters are pretty crafty about creating multiple seemingly unlinked identities. The way we usually discover them is due to betting patterns and affiliate player traffic patterns (particularly betting patterns).