ALERT: Playshare Partners

[GamTrak]

I just heard that Playshare is going to sit down and chat about this with JTodd in Budapest.

Lets cut mojo and EVERYONE else here a break and answer this question striaght up finally! What is the major malfunction here?

Does this term stand retroactively?

Yes, or no. (!)

Please answer and let us get on with our businesses and our lives. Either way many of us here will then know how to preceed with playshare. This doesnt go away and it cannot be avoided.

Meanwhile, I hope everyones plans for Budapest are going well.

 

[mojo]

I am posting this here and posted it at CM. Thank you for listening.

FWIW there is a good thread going on at GPWA regarding why programs like Playshare should not be allowed to attend conferences. I believe those days are over. The thought that, for example, the outrage that the hourglass for PSP is acceptable and outrageous.

My personal recommendation (I discussed with Alex Pratt) was that programs not approved at AGD and CM would be disallowed and AGD and CM would be the authority. If programs don't have the decency to adhere to these standards then naturally there should be no conference priveledges.

The only argument I see is that 'we need to talk to them' is not valid. Are folks going to 'talk to these programs' and tell them what? You suck? LOL That will take 5 minutes and the other 23 hours will go to drinking and partying and whatever.

Meanwhile they are hooking 500 other naive affiliates. How could anyone think this is OK? That trickles down to our main concern, Players.

It is harmful to have these programs at conferences! I have yet to hear an argument other than 'we need to talk to them'! Pleeeeaaase! 'Behind the scenes' is another.

They have Brians, and Andys, and Michaels direct line I do believe! Use it!!

Now we are here once again. I was patient waiting for results for the 'we want to talk to them'. But guess what..

STILL NO ANSWER!!!!!!

If these cocky PSP's want to attend the AFFILIATE conference in LONDON or some shit, are we going to let them??? Reallly?????

 

[greek39]

Some affiliates believe programs like Playshare should be allowed at conferences regardless of their background. I would break out into a cold sweat knowing I am occupying the same space with the likes of Playshare.

Know I have account with them but seldom login, their just creepy. I read the T&C’s and yet they appear meaningless. Change the terms were having a bad year someone must pay for this, yeah let the affiliate take the loss. Not good IMO and think Dominique is absolutely right! It will and does set a very dangerous precedent for all programs to follow.

I am beginning to wonder when filing your income tax can this loss be a write off, it should be.

IMO they should be banished from conferences, no sense having the criminal and the innocent in the same room. I sincerely applaud your efforts bonustreak but feel maybe you been hustled. Makes sense this is what Playshare is doing.

Think we better ought be doing something about it and soon.

greek39

 

[greek39]

I feel like rambling a bit just a thought. There is no legal recourse for this type of behaviour jurisdictional reasons I suppose. Likewise Playshare has no legal jurisdiction over the majority of us either.

This might explain why some Chinese are pirating gaming software of all kinds: in preparation for the Online Gambling explosion expecting to peak at 8.1 billion market by 2012 in China alone.

I am suggesting we often sell ourselves short and accept things as they are. I believe we are the real masters behind the scenes. If only we could all tackle this problem as one.

greek39

 

[mojo]

Absolutly Peter.

Makes sense this is what Playshare is doing.

Sad but true.

you been hustled.

 

[Lawrence]

PSP High Roller Policy: The Resolution

Hi all,

Before I begin, let me apologize for the time taken to get this to you. We have really taken our time over this, making sure to calculate the financial implications of all potential compromises to both PlayShare Partners and its affiliates, particularly after our face-to-face meetings with GPWA and APCW in Budapest. I do, however, believe that what I have outlined below will have been worth the wait. Obviously all parties, PlayShare Partners included, want to get this issue resolved in the fairest way possible so that we can all move on to what we do best.

There are four parts to our resolution. For clarity’s sake, I will deal with each individually.

SEMANTICS
Whilst this really isn’t a significant change, we will amend the name of the policy to read Big Winner Policy, rather than High Roller Policy.

COMMUNICATION
As mentioned to GPWA, APCW and a number of affiliates in Budapest, it is apparent that we did not communicate the addition of the High Roller Policy to the PlayShare Partners terms and conditions clearly enough. Whilst it has always said in our terms that we can make changes to the agreement without notice, I think our lack of direct communication in this regard has contributed to the sensitivity of the situation. Resultingly, we will commit to notifying our affiliates, via the website and/or e-mail, of any amendments to the terms and conditions in the future. If an affiliate does not wish to continue to promote us under the revised terms then their first recourse, as with almost every other casino affiliate program, will be to stop promoting our casinos. Although this should go without saying, we will always honor affiliates' earnings and resultant payments, be they active or not.

RETROACTIVITY
We have crunched the numbers, and believe that we can make a positive move by applying the High Roller Policy (soon to renamed Big Winner Policy) to players that registered subsequent to the addition of the policy of our terms and conditions. This means that all players that registered at CasinoShare or Grand Mondial before the 1st of February 2008, will be exempt from the High Roller Policy. We will be contacting all affiliates that have been affected by the High Roller Policy, but from players registered prior to the 1st of February 2008, and will reimburse them for all moneys outstanding. This will be done in conjunction with our next payment run, due to be completed next week. Please be aware that this involves a significant amount of money, and is a decision we have not taken lightly.

POLICY STRUCTURE
Although we have looked at all of the possible alternatives, including “ringfencing”, we will not be changing the structure of the policy at all. As outlined in our .pdf document published in August 2009, we firmly believe that the policy is the fairest compromise for all parties.

As mentioned, we have really done our due diligence on this, and believe that the changes we intend making are agreeable and satisfactory. The final decision has been a long time in the making, but we are happy that affiliates’ concerns will now be successfully addressed.

The terms and conditions on the PSP website will be amended accordingly shortly.

Sincerely,
Lawrence Wilson
Affiliate Program Manager
PlayShare Partners

 

[Guard Dog]

Thank you Lawrence! And Playshare! (for doing right by affiliates)


To Sum it all up: The retroactive nature of the 'Big Winner' clause has been removed. All monies which were affected by the clause will be returned to those affiliates (incredible news). There will be a 'Big Winner' clause for all future players, but all players who came to the casinos through your links prior to February 1, 2008 (date of 'Big Winner' implementation) will NOT be affected.


From an AGD Perspective: As soon as this term is alerted at AGD, we will remove the predatory status. This status was given to Playshare in response to the retroactive term (which is in the process of being removed).


Again - thank you Playshare for taking a serious look into this!

 

[greek39]

Indeed thank you Lawrence for fairness, I will eat my shoe on this one.

greek39

 

[bonustreak]

PLAYSHARE ROCKS!!! I knew this was going to be good in the end, it was just going to take a bit of time and patience. I myself am going to be giving Playshare a top spot on all my sites for doing the right thing by ALL affiliates in the industry in the end.

Thanks again Lawrence and Playshare for doing the right thing.;D

 

[mojo]

This is fantastic news and I am happy to see such a positive resolution.

Thank you Andy and Bonustreak and AGD for all of your hard work and support that benefits ALL affiliates. AGD sticks to what's right and it's not easy.

Thank you Lawrence and PSP. I will glad to see this behind us.

From an AGD Perspective: As soon as this term is alerted at AGD, we will remove the predatory status. This status was given to Playshare in response to the retroactive term (which is in the process of being removed).

Excellent! It will be great to see the predatory status removed.

Great job to all involved!

 

[Guard Dog]

Playshare really deserves the bulk of the credit here. They went above and beyond all expectations on this one.

In my opinion they hit it completely out of the ballpark.

 

[triple777s]

Chris I also will be doing the same. I think this is the first time in my 7 years that i have seen such a turn around from a program that has made all seasoned affiliates happy and proud to promote a group after such turmoil. Bravo Playshare, we now see that you respect us affiliates and you are and will be held in a highly respected way by us from now on and have set the bar so high for other affiliate programs i don't think you will ever be knocked down.

Thank you sincerely
Pat

[ps, this didn't even effect my, i have supported and promoted all your programs since your start, but just to see the way you are taking care of my peers has given me a wonderful outlook and new found respect for you and your company.]

PLAYSHARE ROCKS!!! I knew this was going to be good in the end, it was just going to take a bit of time and patience. I myself am going to be giving Playshare a top spot on all my sites for doing the right thing by ALL affiliates in the industry in the end.

Thanks again Lawrence and Playshare for doing the right thing.;D

 

[bonustreak]

Yeah this program has always been top notch so I had no doubt ever that they would do the right thing.. It is all in team work and working together affiliates and programs and show respect to one another. We all have to get along in these hard times and learn to work together for the greater good of the whole industry. I am very proud of everyone involved.

 

[Vladi]

-- snip double post -- server weirdness.. see next post

 

[Vladi]

Credit to Playshare for reversing the retoractiveness (?!? just made that up), and well done to everyone involved in getting this addressed.

However I think amidst all the back-slapping, playshare rocks, and hitting out of the ballpark comments everyone seems to be missing the forest for the trees.

They are not introducing immediate ring-fencing of players. So the scenario where you lose your first month's commission for other players (outlined in the first post of this thread) still stands for new players. Also what is not clear is whether the commission will be calculated entirely separately for each class of player then added together at the end of month. If not (and I doubt it), the new policy still affects the pre-policy players if a new player wins big.

As such I believe they should still be marked as predatory, and if not some kind of big fat warning - they have still given themselves license to steal your commissions. You would be stupid to heavily promote this program to new players.

 

[bonusgeek]

Credit to Playshare for reversing the retoractiveness (?!? just made that up), and well done to everyone involved in getting this addressed.

However I think amidst all the back-slapping, playshare rocks, and hitting out of the ballpark comments everyone seems to be missing the forest for the trees.

They are not introducing immediate ring-fencing of players. So the scenario where you lose your first month's commission for other players (outlined in the first post of this thread) still stands for new players. Also what is not clear is whether the commission will be calculated entirely separately for each class of player then added together at the end of month. If not (and I doubt it), the new policy still affects the pre-policy players if a new player wins big.

As such I believe they should still be marked as predatory, and if not some kind of big fat warning - they have still given themselves license to steal your commissions. You would be stupid to heavily promote this program to new players.

Honestly I have never taken the time to understand the whole fencing thing since I don't work with them. But I certainly don't think they are mother teresa because they decided to do what most all other programs do aleady and that is not to implement retroactive terms. And that's if you agree these new terms are not retroactive. Meaning they are still justifying this whole mess by pulling the old vague clause out of their hat that says "we can make changes to the agreement without notice". And just because the high roller policy takes effect from the date they notified affiliates doesn't change the fact that there are now new highroller terms for existing affiliates that they didn't originally sign up for. But then again they do have it in their terms that says they can change the contract as they deem necessary so I really don't know what to think about it. I know if they changed the commissions down to 10% and chalked it up to the clause we can change the contract as we see fit without notice, then affiliates would be screaming predatory and bloody murder.

What I do know is there were a lot of unhappy affiliates for the past several months, and now everyone seems to be happy. So I applaud Playshare for making them happy and compromising. And I definitely applaud all the people who devoted countless hours in turning this thing around and talking some sense into playshare. I think if the affiliates who promote them are happy, I say leave well enough alone and move forward, but that's easy for me to say since I am sitting on the sidelines unaffected by all of this.

 

[Guard Dog]

Note that the Playshare Forum Homepage shows (on the right side) that they have a High Roller term enacted. This is a warning icon for any program with such a term.

This will soon be displayed on ALL the forum pages for Playshare (and other programs). We do not want affiliates to lose sight of the 'Big Winner' clause, but to be aware of it.

As the terms currently stand, no old affiliate will be affected by the high roller clause UNLESS they continue to send traffic. Then all new players will be affected, of course.

I still believe that Playshare did the right thing and even beat out all of our expectations by returning revenues (at the end of this month) to all affiliates affected by the retroactive term.