Casumo Affiliates - Reply by 12th October or account will be suspended

[Bonus Paradise]

Maybe the title of the thread could be changed to something like ........ UKGC Rules - Questions and answers ........ ?

 

[Zuga]

18+ Gamble responsibly etc is acceptable in a footer that is site wide.

Any time the welcome offer is mentioned and there is a CTA there must be terms to said offer at a maximum of 1 click away.

This is going to be super tricky to do for 99% of us. Easy enough to place a link within related casino review information, or have the banners that are compliant. But most affiliate sites have bonus comparison lists, directories and other related libraries of information and so forth ( literally tons of different pages ) which would make this a daunting task. And would probably require some code reprogramming.

Also part of the issue is the incomplete or somewhat different information being provided to us by affiliate programs, which means not everyone is on the same page here and have different interpretation of these compliance rules.

 

[Biti]

We've chosen for linking to the t&c in the top 10-table. We're having the position, logo, bonus offer, small description, review-link and CTA-button. In the description, we mention that t&c's are available. But ofc, we will monitor if this doesn't hurt our conversion. The alternative is not mentioning the bonus offer, to avoid the obligation to link to t&c.

I think sooner or later most brands will come with this kind of requirements.

 

[Bonus Paradise]

From Email from Casumo:

When mentioning Casumo's Welcome Package of £1200 and 200 free spins in your review, you must clearly state how this is achieved along with all major terms.

So there we go........... if we have welcome offers posted with € sign, this does not apply for UK customers. ???

 

[baldidiot]

This is going to be super tricky to do for 99% of us. Easy enough to place a link within related casino review information, or have the banners that are compliant. But most affiliate sites have bonus comparison lists, directories and other related libraries of information and so forth ( literally tons of different pages ) which would make this a daunting task. And would probably require some code reprogramming.

The terms should just be on the same landing page as the offer so there's no need for two links.

That's how most of the uk bookies have been doing it.

 

[Biti]

From Email from Casumo:



So there we go........... if we have welcome offers posted with € sign, this does not apply for UK customers. ???

Why not geo-block UK ? In most countries that's the way to be safe.

 

[Bonus Paradise]

Why not geo-block UK ? In most countries that's the way to be safe.

Yes I already posted that this would be an option. But how bad would this be for a site SEO wise ?
What I mean is, would google maybe also rank your site lower in other countries if you geo block UK ?

 

[Bonus Paradise]

The terms should just be on the same landing page as the offer so there's no need for two links.

That's how most of the uk bookies have been doing it.

I thought something like that too.
The casinos could make Landing pages where the terms , explanation on the offer is written clearly.

So this is then also only one click away if a person clicks on any link at an affiliate site.

 

[Biti]

Yes I already posted that this would be an option. But how bad would this be for a site SEO wise ?
What I mean is, would google maybe also rank your site lower in other countries if you geo block UK ?

If you block the whole site, it certainly doesn't help. But you could, for example, geo-block outgoing links to UK-visitors and/or send them to some kind of UK page, where you link to t&c's and have your CTA. Then you comply and you don't bother other traffic with UK-rules.

 

[Bonus Paradise]

If you block the whole site, it certainly doesn't help. But you could, for example, geo-block outgoing links to UK-visitors and/or send them to some kind of UK page, where you link to t&c's and have your CTA. Then you comply and you don't bother other traffic with UK-rules.

Thank you! This is an idea, although it may be not easy to implent on my site. We will see.

 

[Bonus Paradise]

On the other hand, this is exact what the casinos could do. Many anways already use geo and redirect i.e. germany to german LP, Uk to a lp for UK......
So they just would need to add terms on the LP and clear explanation on the offer and voila - the terms are max one click away for the visitor who clicks on our links.

 

[Bonus Paradise]

Check the UK Site from VeraJohn
https://www.verajohn.co.uk/

On the welcome offer you can see "New players only. Min dep. £10 deposit. Max bonus £100. Full T&Cs apply." which is linked to the terms page

Yeah but then this would still not be enough for us affiliates, right?
The terms are not one click away from our site

Ok I give up thinking about this all for today.

 

[KasinoKing]

Check the UK Site from VeraJohn
https://www.verajohn.co.uk/

On the welcome offer you can see "New players only. Min dep. £10 deposit. Max bonus £100. Full T&Cs apply." which is linked to the terms page

Yeah but then this would still not be enough for us affiliates, right?
The terms are not one click away from our site

Ok I give up thinking about this all for today.

I think possibly Casumo are slightly over-reacting because they got the slap-down (I believe) from the regulator and they had a recent history of a LOT of cowboy affiliates using very dodgy means to promote them.

I don't think many other operators will insist on such stringent requirements from us... at least, I hope not!

KK

 

[CL-Ed]

This is a problem of Casumo's (and many other casinos and affiliates) own making. If they weren't trying to deceive people with misleading "£1200 welcome bonus" offers that aren't in fact worth £1200 unless you make 5 deposits (and in many cases lose them all to qualify for the next one), then none of this would be happening. I wrote a long and angry email to our affiliate manager about this, pointing out that for 10 years we have only been showing the first deposit part of these multi-part bullshit offers for exactly that reason. And that we had asked many casinos for tagged links directly to bonus T&Cs pages before and never once got a positive reply.

And now they want us to not only link to the T&Cs which I am actually quite ok with as I would prefer players to be informed (and even an industry without bonuses at all but that's a whole other rant), but they demanded that we print a huge wall of text explaining each stage of their muti-part offer in the middle of our review text. This despite us never making mention of any £1200 offer previously. They are telling us to correct the misrepresentations that they have deliberately engineered and we never made in the first place.

Anyway one positive result of the long angry email is that the affiliate manager conceded that if we are only showing the first part of the bonus, we don't need to print the wall of text explaining their multi-part offer (which will no doubt be duplicated verbatim on countless affiliate sites, let that sink in). Fine with me, though if you are doing things their way you had best get prepared.

 

[Biti]

I think possibly Casumo are slightly over-reacting because they got the slap-down (I believe) from the regulator and they had a recent history of a LOT of cowboy affiliates using very dodgy means to promote them.

I don't think many other operators will insist on such stringent requirements from us... at least, I hope not!

KK

Yeah, they were things about Casumo involved in fake news. Of which they were warned by affiliates already back in 2015 and 2016, but it seems they didn't care. And it seems general reviews are going on, focusing on minors & gambling. I think that once you're in the picture, you'd better be safe than sorry.

But I agree also that it should all start with casinos being transparent about their offer. They don't have a welcome bonus of 1.200, as that's the total you can get if you deposit 5 times. And they do not have 200 free spins as they're not free. It are bonus spins. I guess the biggest part of the problem would already have been solved if bonus offers were more transparent.

 

[Engineer]

Yes I already posted that this would be an option. But how bad would this be for a site SEO wise ?
What I mean is, would google maybe also rank your site lower in other countries if you geo block UK ?

All of the important search engine spiders are based in the US, on US IPs, so if you block a non-US country, it will have no effect their ability to access and index your site, since you aren't blocking the US.

 

[casinonewbie]

Another Question - if an affiliate adds a link to the terms and conditions, how will that track the players?

It won't be tracked, that's why it was mentioned

 

[Alex-Casumo]

Of course it will be tracked, Media ID 7416 in Netrefer.

If you are having problems pulling the T&C link compete with tracking then please contact your affiliate manager.

 

[AussieDave]

Although you may not actively targeting the UK there is a strong possibility you will get spill over traffic and thus be in breach.

That's easy... if your not promoting to the UK (moi included) just GEOIP block the country.

In addition to this the chances are regulation is coming to other markets, its best to be ahead of the curve and try to apply similar rules to all markets. This would save additional work in the future.

Compliant frameworks are never simple. What one market makes mandatory, another may not. My advice to affiliates, only do what needs addressing for the UKGC to make your site(s) compliant. And, like me, if your not targeting UK, block it. It's not worth the headaches, if it's a very low % of your overall income.

 

[AussieDave]

All of the important search engine spiders are based in the US, on US IPs

Actually that's not entirely correct. Bing/MSN make use of a CA IP sometimes. And, AFAIK, Google were (for a while there) using non US IP's as a method to ensure pages were not being cloaked. Not sure if they still use this practice.

However, with regards to the actually question, blocking the UK wont (imo) harm your SERP's