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

[Bonus Paradise]

Heads up, received this email from Casumo Affiliates yesterday.
ALL Affiliates need to reply that they read and understood or your account will be set to 0,0% and suspended.

Compliance and Account Suspensions


Dear Affiliate,

In the recent past, we have sent out a couple of important newsletters regarding compliance with the rules and regulations issued by the UK Gambling Commission. This is another send-out, an EXTREMELY important one, which you should not fail to open and that requires a thorough read through. As you should be aware, compliance with the requisite rules is a must, meaning you either fully commit yourself to abide or risk continuing your business as an affiliate with Casumo. We need you to carefully read, understand and confirm receipt of this communication by replying to this email. Failure to do this will result in your account being suspended and set to €0/0%.

Every affiliate without discrimination must be fully compliant by the 12th of October 2017 and in this newsletter we are going to show you exactly how to do that. Regardless of how big or small your account is with Casumo - THIS APPLIES TO YOU!

We do offer our apologies for the short notice, but we are working with extremely tight deadlines ourselves. We understand this is tough and we value you as our partner, which is why we will work together to get through this. Your dedicated Affiliate Manager is here to help you with any questions you may have. If you do not know who your AM is then please contact us on affiliates@casumo.com.

From the 12th of October we will begin removing affiliates who cannot comply with the changes or show no active interest in doing so. Going forward we will only work with affiliates who can be trusted to keep up with regulatory changes and act upon them immediately or even better stay ahead of them. It's important to understand that there is simply no room for error in regulated markets.

Send Outs, Editorials & Affiliate Networks

We will start off by announcing that all SMSs, Emails, Direct Marketing and Editorials (native articles) are no longer accepted sources of UK traffic. Anyone sending traffic via any of these means must stop immediately. You will no longer be paid for this traffic and failure to cease working this way will result in your account with us being closed and commissions withheld.

Additionally, Affiliate Networks should cease operations in the UK. Unfortunately the business of sub-affiliates is out of our control. "Sorry it was a sub-affiliate" is not a valid excuse and since the risk is high we have taken the decision to stop accepting sub-affiliation deals.

How to be compliant:

Regardless of the way in which you promote Casumo, the 3 points below are a necessity on every page where you promote any kind of Welcome Offer:

• Add: 18+, New Customers Only, Gamble Responsibly - www.begambleaware.org
• Add link to Terms and Conditions (Media ID 7416)
• Remove all Casumo Characters - The UKGC believes that these may appeal to minors and therefore must no longer appear in any way, shape or form in the UK.

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. We strongly suggest the below wording:

"Casumo´s Welcome Bonus is split into 5 deposit bonuses to a maximum of £1200 and 200 free spins on Starburst
Directly after registration you get 20 freespins.
The first deposit bonus is 200% up to a maximum bonus of £50 and 180 free spins (20 freespins per day the following 9 days)
The second deposit bonus is 50% up to a maximum bonus of £150
The third deposit bonus is 50% up to a maximum bonus of £200
The fourth deposit bonus is 25% up to a maximum bonus of £400
The fifth deposit bonus is 25% up to a maximum bonus of £400

All deposit bonus amounts must be wagered 25 times before withdrawal. Winnings from any free spins must be wagered 30 times. The smallest possible deposit is £10. The maximum amount of bonus is £50. Not all games contribute equally to the wagering requirement. All deposit bonuses are on opt-in basis. For participation details refer to Casumo's Bonus T&Cs."

We know that on pages such as 'Top 10 lists' you may not have enough space for a large text similar to the above. In these cases, we recommend mentioning only the first deposit offer of '200% up to £50 bonus+20 free spins on Starburst', including links to the terms and conditions and Full Terms and limitations of the Welcome Offer (in italics above) listed in your review.

The ASA are here to help:

This may all be a bit overwhelming, but please remember that the regulatory bodies wish for you to be compliant just as much as you and we do. If you have any uncertainties as to whether or not you are compliant, you can send your pages and reviews over to the ASA for a full review, after which they will carefully advise you on how to become 100% compliant. The link below is helpful:


https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-and-resources/bespoke-copy-advice.html

How to proceed:

Firstly, we need you to reply to this email to confirm that you have read and understood this important piece of communication. We then need you to use and apply the information and recommendations from this email and make the necessary changes.

Lastly, we will need you to list every single UK source where Casumo is mentioned, so that we can assist by performing compliance checks ourselves. We want to work closely together on fixing anything that currently requires a fix. Please reach out to your Affiliate Manager accordingly.

We appreciate your understandings and trust your full cooperation. If you have any doubts, do not hesitate to contact your affiliate manager or email affiliates@casumo.com. In any case please be reminded to send your acknowledgement and rectify your position at your earliest, in no case later than the 12th October 2017.



Sincerely,



The Affiliate Team

 

[Biti]

It's the first mailer of them that I received without their pseudo-cool Casumo-style talk. I would appreciate if they just put "for UK-traffic" above this kind of long mails.

What is also tricky: editorials are no longer allowed? I guess almost every article is an editorial.

It seems they're in trouble already.

 

[PaaskeUK]

It's the first mailer of them that I received without their pseudo-cool Casumo-style talk. I would appreciate if they just put "for UK-traffic" above this kind of long mails.

What is also tricky: editorials are no longer allowed? I guess almost every article is an editorial.

It seems they're in trouble already.

It does mention UK Gambling Commision already in 2nd line??

What i find very confusing is where are the rules when i do not target UK only? When I have made articles they are for all countries mainly UK Scandinavia and some other countries in Europe.

Where do i then stand what is correct and what is wrong. Surely I do not need to add all that 18+ and other things when that is specific for UK? I am so confused with all this.

Even more funny the mention to contact affiliate manager. I do not even know who that is and never hear from anyone only their simple weekly email and also Casumo has sadly gone really boring compared to how they were

 

[KasinoKing]

If you can't do your own personal review of a casino - it's getting to the point where it's hardly worth bothering to promote to the UK any more...
These changes are very minor and won't take long for me to do - but this is getting a bit ridiculous IMHO.

KK

 

[Biti]

It does mention UK Gambling Commision already in 2nd line??

What i find very confusing is where are the rules when i do not target UK only? When I have made articles they are for all countries mainly UK Scandinavia and some other countries in Europe.

Where do i then stand what is correct and what is wrong. Surely I do not need to add all that 18+ and other things when that is specific for UK? I am so confused with all this.

Even more funny the mention to contact affiliate manager. I do not even know who that is and never hear from anyone only their simple weekly email and also Casumo has sadly gone really boring compared to how they were

It does, but it also says in capitals THIS APPLIES TO YOU and "every affiliate without discrimination". To me it's confusing. Also, they ask to confirm receipt of this email and a list of all UK sources...

It goes very far. Those Casumo puppets are appealing to minors. What's next? Playtech slots like Superman, Batman, the Green Lantern? Or Netent slots like Jack & the Beanstalk and Fairytale Legends? Also, I wonder what is exactly an editorial. For our international site we've chosen before to mention 18+, t&c applicable and be very clear about bonus offers, but without editorials, etc it seems we can just do PPC or something.

They have like 7 affiliate managers, but you never ever hear from them. Just the mailers indeed or when it's about compliance. I guess we just need to pull them off. I have no good feeling about this at all.

 

[LandofOz]

I haven't received an email yet, and yes, promoting UK online casinos is getting to be a pain in the neck.

 

[casinonewbie]

Those Casumo puppets are appealing to minors.

LOL - some 8 year old is going to grab dads credit card & start playing at an online casino.

 

[casinonewbie]

"Lastly, we will need you to list every single UK source where Casumo is mentioned, so that we can assist by performing compliance checks ourselves"

Break any of these WTF requests & your toast with these clowns.....

 

[PaaskeUK]

If you can't do your own personal review of a casino - it's getting to the point where it's hardly worth bothering to promote to the UK any more...
These changes are very minor and won't take long for me to do - but this is getting a bit ridiculous IMHO.

KK

I fully agree here KK. What worries me is we are getting silly rules for many different countries now so how do we stand. So if we make an article that targets both UK and other countries. That means we have to include link for uk terms and all other countries terms? And add specific things ...??? yes this is getting way to ridiculous even more that "Suddenly" now all this is happening. When was it UK Gambling Commission actually came into force lol??

 

[Biti]

I must say also that some brands and their lawyers tend to exaggerate with things or simply even abuse developments.

 

[Alex-Casumo]

Hi Guys,

We did send out quite a few compliance emails over the past few months, unfortunately they garnered very little interest/response. Because of this we have had to get serious in our tone.

The regulatory bodies have set some rules to follow when promoting in the UK, ultimately operators are responsible for their affiliates and their posts. If we have misleading or incorrect information out there on the web then it is our responsibility and our licence at risk. Because of this we cannot afford to work with anyone not willing to make changes, those who are not willing to be proactive, and anyone who is outright flouting the rules. You guys have seen the fines being handed out. Whether you think these rules are excessive or not is irrelevant, they are the rules and we all must follow them if we want to be active in the UK.

Affiliates must become compliant or risk their business as a whole, operators are being audited as we speak. Going forward affiliate programs will need to be careful who they have as a partner. The guys who move with times will profit, the ones who do not will suffer. It may sound harsh but this is the top and bottom of it.

We want to work with as many of you as possible going forward, we value our affiliates. We're not in the business of cutting off our food supply for no reason.

Our intention is not to alienate our affiliates or get their backs up, but we need action here. We believe that affiliates have a vital role to play in this industry but they must adapt, just like we have to. For the vast majority of our affiliates, there are very little, or no changes to make to meet compliance rules. What we still require is a reply to let us know that you have read and understood the rules and any sources you have live with Casumo being promoted.

We need this so we can check them and ensure you guys are compliant, if you are not we will help with the changes and give guidance.

We are here to help and we encourage anyone who has questions to raise them with us.

Although we are one of the first companies to act, I would expect much more of the same down the line.

We have decided to stop all mailing - As we cannot control the lists of affiliates.
We have decided to stop affiliate networks - As we cannot control sub affiliates
We have decided to stop Editorial/Native articles - Which is basically clickbait and many times they are not wholly truthful and they are hard to monitor.

Review sites are perfectly fine so long as they adhere to the UKGC rules.

Although the immediate concern is for those in the UK, I would try to get used to staying compliant in all markets, regulation will come to all markets eventually.

Please contact us at affiliates@ Casumo.com with any questions.

 

[BetOnlineUK]

Hi Alex,
I did not receive an email but that may have been sent to an old email address. I did send of an email yesterday as I did see this post. How long before I get a reply do you think?

 

[Alex-Casumo]

Hi,

I have just replied to your email.

Best Regards
Stephen

 

[baldidiot]

We have decided to stop Editorial/Native articles - Which is basically clickbait and many times they are not wholly truthful and they are hard to monitor.

Review sites are perfectly fine so long as they adhere to the UKGC rules.

Could you just clarify these two points as it seems a little ambiguous - do you consider reviews to be editorial articles or when you say that do you mean iffy advertorials?

 

[Alex-Casumo]

I would not consider a review site to be Editorial/Native. Editorial/Native articles are usually 1 page sites with a catchy headline like "You could be the next casino millionaire" etc.

Review sites are the kind of sites we wish to work closer with, but we must ensure they UKGC guidelines.

 

[baldidiot]

I would not consider a review site to be Editorial/Native. Editorial/Native articles are usually 1 page sites with a catchy headline like "You could be the next casino millionaire" etc.

Review sites are the kind of sites we wish to work closer with, but we must ensure they UKGC guidelines.

Ah OK, that makes more sense. For a moment there I was thinking you were saying reviews were a no go.

 

[KasinoKing]

I would not consider a review site to be Editorial/Native. Editorial/Native articles are usually 1 page sites with a catchy headline like "You could be the next casino millionaire" etc.

Review sites are the kind of sites we wish to work closer with, but we must ensure they UKGC guidelines.

Thanks for clarifying that.

KK

 

[Biti]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4637656/fears-cartoons-online-games-luring-kids-gambling/

The end of slots like Jack & the Beanstalk, Hansy & Gretel, Superman, Batmen, Green Lantern, etc or the end of fun play without registration.

 

[baldidiot]

or the end of fun play without registration.

That's probably more likely, and much easier for the UKGC to enforce if they decided to do so.

 

[Aeternus]

I am a bit confused, do these rules apply to all affiliate sites in english, or do they only apply to pages actively targeting UK traffic?

Let's say that you have a site in english, but UK or England isn't mentioned with a single word, do you still have to be compliant?