Invoicing, disappearing AMs & shady tactics in iGaming AFF?

[mashed]

The iGaming affiliate business keeps surprising me. I have been working in affiliate marketing since 1999 and ventured into casino affiliate in 2021 as I know SEO. Things are going pretty well, but it amazes me how shady this business is. I'm used to other verticals like Adult, and I must say this is something especially shady.
A lot of time is spent on chasing down AMs who jump from company to company (they never tell us they leave a company so we need to figure this out ourselves). Getting paid for the FTDs requires a PhD in forensics, and managing invoices is a daunting task! - Is this a legit requirement or just an extra hoop of trying to make this business as complicated as possible?
What is your take on these things? How to deal with all these industry PITAs?

 

[preditor]

Welcome to AGD @mashed !

You are absolutely right about how this bizz goes thease days! In the very early years of casino affiliating (for me and many other veterans), Netrefer and Myaffiliates - programs usually did NOT reguire an invoice, to get commissions. Netrefer casinos use to pay commissions without hussling with invoicing and casinos using myaffiliates had a working "Generate automatic invoice" - function.

In fact, most casinos and programs even paid their affiliates as fast as possible, in the early days of a fresh month - but thouse days are gone!!

Nowdays, you litarally have to spend hours and hours on invoicing, checking VAT-numbers, send reminders and it's such a waist of time! Also, keeping an eye on the t&c's for sudden changes is nowdays a must.

Nowdays payments tend to be very late of the month and hunting AM's to get updates why the commissions are not paid is almost a weekly task.

I work / have experience with hundreds of casinos and some days i'm like "WTF is this??" for shit like 500€ minimum payout, on a rs - deal, where you litarally just want to check if it converts and get in a bunch of players during a 3-4 months period and finaly can get paid - but no, since last month you just sent 2 active players and there is 5 minimum according to the terms or the am is asking for positions before making payment (ransome/kindnapping)!

Not all programs do this, but some are really, really terrible on understanding how affiliating works and in my eyez, many softswiss/affilika - casinos/programs affiliate managers are monkeys that don't understand a shit but press the big red buttons since getting the am - role or even an own whitelabel is made "to easy".

Sorry my language, spelling and long sentences! I have never been good at English nor spelling but affiliating is something i belive i'm quite good at!

 

[mashed]

Hello Preditor. Nice to meet you, and thank you for confirming my thought and experiences. I feared that I was right about this!
I can relate to the ransom situation, and often the only leverage we have is their position on our ranked top list on the site.

It might be naive from my end, but why is this business so rotten, considering how lucrative it theoretically is? Is it because the brands are suffering as the innovation in the casino biz seems to be stale as some stranded whale?

 

[mashed]

It scares me that this thread received so little traction. I guess people can't relate to the issues in the business then.

 

[Juan Roman]

Yes, there are a lot of shady programs and more "paperwork" is required these days in order to get paid, but there are some honest programs as well.

In order to minimise the chances of getting screwed over in the future, one should do an extensive research into any program they intend to work with. The best way is learning from experiences of fellow webmasters here on AGD and GPWA.

If you have doubts about a certain program but still decide to add it to your site, make sure to agree a CPA or better yet hybrid deal rather than rev share that may not be honoured. That way, you'll still have earned decent money if they decide to stop paying eventually.

 

[preditor]

Just spent hours on invoicing and one casino where the account balance finaly is over 500€ wants me to sign an "agreement" with heavy paragraphs of "doing all my effort to promote" etc. to get paid.

This is so fu#^×d up, but I knew something fishy was going on as my skype started blinking of multiple "different" am's from them tryed to add me and want to talk about listings etc.

Anyhow - AGD use to have more active members but lately it's as you wrote, quitet time to time. It's also season for casinos, it's getting both cold as well as dark outside so many of us simle have longer days and less energy to do stuff - including posting on AGD.

Some casinos and their management are just not getting it: We deliver traffic and we cud make a win-win even on a RS deal - long term, but more and more they are just out after quick money, shaving their affiliates and basicly destroying their own brands when we affiliates get "kicked out" or do not get paid. Some just do not understand that SEO sites for example, are like rollercosters where some months can be high as the sky while others a living hell if getting a hit by MR. G.

The ones that wants a minimum number of new players each month, simple do not understand that but rather think us affiliates like employees that do not do a good enugh job or stuff like that.

Example from my side when it comes to casinos:

- From 100 casinos, 30-40 are some really good ones with good management, great deals that benefit both the affiliate as well as the casino and long term - like up to 15 years of working together.

- 20ish casinos are just some you have up with a desnet rs- deal and who you invoice the commissions every 3-6m, depending on minimumpayout.

- The rest casinos are the ones you regret you ever registered with. They adjust the terms whenever they feel for it and also never pays commissions on time / you have to ask about them all the time.

When I started as an casino affiliate 2002'ish, almost every single casino was great to work with, conversions was great and you cud actually make a living of it just on pure RS - deals! The AM' did not stress and "kidnap" you in situations like payments nowdays.

It was much better in the old good days - but ofcource, im also getting older so basicly everything was better before =)

 

[Led]

- The rest casinos are the ones you regret you ever registered with. They adjust the terms whenever they feel for it and also never pays commissions on time / you have to ask about them all the time.

I agree with what you said; however, if you'd name these casinos, it would benefit us.

 

[preditor]

I agree with what you said; however, if you'd name these casinos, it would benefit us.

I will - but after I get paid - I promice!

 

[MissExposé]

@preditor if you need our assistance, please let us know.

 

[Motz]

I would advice to not add 100+ casinos to your list, but to be more picky. Also, I personally do not have much patience if retention is shit and commission is disappointing month after month. I will just remove them eventually instead of keep feeding them new players. Sometimes your gut feeling will tell you that something is not right. I notice with a few casinos that, at first commission was great but then suddenly turned shit. There is a big risk they've done some shady shit. In return I lower exposure and eventually stop promoting them. Fuck them, life is too short to wait around or waste time arguing with them. I just remove and move on.