Small Playtech properties removing large players after one month

[allfreechips]

Winner affiliates - I had 2 large players over 40K deposited in a single month, one just stopped playing and one asked his account be closed according to winner, I can accept the please close my account guy..

Pulse - After having a great december on the 31st of the month my stats were reduced 14K and 46,000 in deposits were removed from december stats, then looking back over 12 months deposits were removed for the entire year, looks like they took away the big fish from my account. They say bonuses and withdraws reduced deposits and they are moving to a new stats program to avoid this??? First time in my 10 years the monthly earning are not correct with a playtech!

 

[AussieDave]

First time in my 10 years the monthly earning are not correct with a playtech!

You've hit the nail on the head there.

I'm sure some degree of shaving has been around since day one. But, on a whole, with the type of cash these casino's were bringing in back then, least until the UIGEA came in, there was no need to shave to the extent we're seeing these days. Back then Microgaming was the best software around. Now, look at the variety available to players. Albeit USA players are stuck with RTG, Rival and the other crap.

What your seeing is exactly what's happened to a lot of affiliates and I'm afraid it's only going to get worse. Those affiliates who think their accounts are safe, will soon see what it feels to be robbed left, right and center. All this could have been avoid if affiliate's had form an alliance but sadly, even that I think is too late now.

 

[KasinoKing]

First time in my 10 years the monthly earning are not correct with a playtech!

I wouldn't be so certain that this is the first time - I've been shaved by dodgy Playtechs more than all the other brands put together.
They software is very good, but 80% of the operators are "dodgy" at best, rogue at worst.
If you're going to promote Playtech sites, by VERY careful who you choose.

KK

 

[footballaffiliate]

I'm surprised you've gone 10 years without being robbed by Winner with that sort of turnover. Must be a new world record! Perhaps Winner somehow had a glitch in their system that made them not notice such a strong affiliate account.

We've all been robbed by Winner. Spent my time at LAC telling people I don't trust them and how I don't trust Playtech. Many looked at me bemused, but had no excuses or comebacks.

 

[KasinoKing]

We've all been robbed by Winner. Spent my time at LAC telling people I don't trust them and how I don't trust Playtech. Many looked at me bemused, but had no excuses or comebacks.

Same here. I didn't go to talk to them, but one of their guys just came up and asked if I was working with them.
I told him, "No I dumped you because if a player wins a progressive jackpot, you will hold on to the money which does not belong to your casino. It's totally immoral and indefensible". At least he didn't try to defend it - just shrugged his shoulders and said "It is what it is".

That's the one thing at LAC which really makes my blood boil - nearly all the biggest, flashiest stands near the front of the venue were of these scumbag rip-off programs.
It's a shame AGD isn't a lot bigger - it would be great if they could put on an "Alternative LAC" with only honest programs exhibiting...

KK

 

[footballaffiliate]

Same here. I didn't go to talk to them, but one of their guys just came up and asked if I was working with them.
I told him, "No I dumped you because if a player wins a progressive jackpot, you will hold on to the money which does not belong to your casino. It's totally immoral and indefensible". At least he didn't try to defend it - just shrugged his shoulders and said "It is what it is".

That's the one thing at LAC which really makes my blood boil - nearly all the biggest, flashiest stands near the front of the venue were of these scumbag rip-off programs.
It's a shame AGD isn't a lot bigger - it would be great if they could put on an "Alternative LAC" with only honest programs exhibiting...

KK

You speak the entire truth as usual KK - hit the nail on the head. Funny though, I was approached by the usual people walking the floor trying to do their use car-salesman pitch - some of the lines were terrible, for example "haven't I seen you before?", "I think I recognise you". Seems these Playtech and programs based you know where need a little training from the year 2014, not from some comedy chat up lines book you buy your Dad for Christmas. What next "get your coat, your coming to work for Winner.com"?

Big flashy stands make my blood boil too. I just look at them and think "there's my revenue share that was never paid to me when I was young and naïve and promoted these sharks".

I'm surprised people like Ladbrokes even turned up with a stand, as they don't even have a working affiliate program anymore. Just what were all those people talking about in meetings with them?!

It's amazing too how you walk past some of the stands and see groups of people talking to the aff managers, like they're doing important deals with these crooks. Perhaps if you're in the right circles then you don't get robbed, shaved, and players detagged? That's the only plausible reason I can see as to why some of the big guys still work with these people. More than likely they pay the big guys fixed price deals instead.

It's also amazing how a free bar, or a few bottles of vodka and red bull and some half naked girls seem to make people forget how bad a company is at doing business.

One thing I'd love to do is put together an alternative magazine/handout that would be available at LAC that simply documented all of the bad affiliate experiences with companies.

 

[Guard Dog]

I have thought about that to be honest. I will look into an alternative approach [eventing]. Magazines... that is doable as well. I just have to look into it. It's not the feasibility so much as 'how big the list is' for magazines. The reach is what matters and I would need to garner a large mail base.

 

[footballaffiliate]

I have thought about that to be honest. I will look into an alternative approach [eventing]. Magazines... that is doable as well. I just have to look into it. It's not the feasibility so much as 'how big the list is' for magazines. The reach is what matters and I would need to garner a large mail base.

I've had an idea for a long time - some sort of one-stop big matrix of affiliate program factors - the program name down the side, and across the top the factors that should help an affiliate decide whether to work with them. I kind of have this in a spreadsheet, but it's not complete. Factors would include the straight answerable ones - do they have negative carry over, do they have minimum player requirements, do they pay lifetime, how long is the tracking cookie, do they offer cross product, how much is the "admin fee" in the net revenue calculation, and then a separate column that would give a score based on evidence (albeit anecdotal or not) of player shaving, late payments, revenue shaving etc. If an advertiser's score was low then the score could be clicked on and a list of "evidence" i.e. posts on various forums/websites, could be linked to.

Each score could be based on how many negative posts there are across x number of forums, compounded by the number of people interacting with those posts, compounded with how long ago those posts were. It would give companies a fair chance to clean up their act over time and have their score improve. A bit like domain authority or any other sort of index which ranks websites.

It would be a one-pager from where affiliates could start from and delve deeper as needed. If promoted well it could become the gold standard, and the place affiliate programs needed to impress upon in order to not lose business.

There are loads of forums, and people have to cipher through a lot of detail to make their minds up about programs so I think a lot of affiliates tend to not have the time or interest in looking through a lot of information.

 

[Guard Dog]

I've had an idea for a long time - some sort of one-stop big matrix of affiliate program factors - the program name down the side, and across the top the factors that should help an affiliate decide whether to work with them. I kind of have this in a spreadsheet, but it's not complete. Factors would include the straight answerable ones - do they have negative carry over, do they have minimum player requirements, do they pay lifetime, how long is the tracking cookie, do they offer cross product, how much is the "admin fee" in the net revenue calculation, and then a separate column that would give a score based on evidence (albeit anecdotal or not) of player shaving, late payments, revenue shaving etc. If an advertiser's score was low then the score could be clicked on and a list of "evidence" i.e. posts on various forums/websites, could be linked to.

Each score could be based on how many negative posts there are across x number of forums, compounded by the number of people interacting with those posts, compounded with how long ago those posts were. It would give companies a fair chance to clean up their act over time and have their score improve. A bit like domain authority or any other sort of index which ranks websites.

It would be a one-pager from where affiliates could start from and delve deeper as needed. If promoted well it could become the gold standard, and the place affiliate programs needed to impress upon in order to not lose business.

There are loads of forums, and people have to cipher through a lot of detail to make their minds up about programs so I think a lot of affiliates tend to not have the time or interest in looking through a lot of information.

Not a bad idea. I've had similar thoughts. I even wrote an alert that lets me know if a casino property is on the naughty list(s) at CM. That was all going to go into what I called the 'Affiliate Mashup'. The programming is completed for that, but not implemented. There are a lot of details to keep up on which is quite exhausting. it will probably come in the next phase of AGD. However - not in the exact format you mentioned. This would be a page-by-page for each program with a front-page much like the AGD Websites homepage.

Might be able to tailor it to do a comparison page, though.

 

[footballaffiliate]

Good though that if you type in <affiliate program name> and review in Google that a lot of the time you get an AGD link. I suppose ultimately that's what people search for, if they even search at all.

I think the best way to police the industry is to hit the advertisers in their pockets. If one resource becomes so important and influential that as an advertiser you cannot afford to be disrespected on it, then this will become our power as affiliates. Take TripAdvisor for example - if you're a restaurant or hotel with bad reviews you're practically screwed.

 

[KasinoKing]

I'm surprised people like Ladbrokes even turned up with a stand, as they don't even have a working affiliate program anymore. Just what were all those people talking about in meetings with them?!

Well I was one of those people talking to Ladbrokes. I know they've pulled some "stunts" in the past, but to be fair, they have always treated me OK - including waiving the minimum quota rule and giving me a good flat rate % despite the fact I'm only a "minnow" bringing in only 1 or 2 new depositors per month.
They were my biggest earner last year - so I definitely wanted to talk to them about dumping the most popular software on the planet (MG), and their crap new affy back-end.

My Aff Man said that the reports should be showing all the stats I need to see and would look into my complaint that the new system shows virtually nothing.
Still waiting as of right now - but I hope they do deliver as promised.

Sorry, this is a bit of a derail - though Lads have now got Playtech too.
They may have some "affiliate unfriendly" terms, but I for one do trust them 99% - which is a LOT more than most other Playtech based casinos.

KK

 

[footballaffiliate]

My Aff Man said that the reports should be showing all the stats I need to see and would look into my complaint that the new system shows virtually nothing. Still waiting as of right now - but I hope they do deliver as promised.

Ladbrokes are liars. They seem to have generic bullsh1t like this they tell affiliates to try calm them down. They dropped their cookie length with the move too and then told loads of affiliates that shorter cookie lengths converted better than longer cookie lengths! WTF?!

The stats on the system show the least amount of detail they could ever show.

Watch out for your earnings now - if they were your biggest earner. Now that you've made them aware of a couple of good profitable players I'm sure they'll be skimmed off your account in the coming months. We had a large number of players skimmed with the move.

If you stop promoting them you magically start to get sign ups on really low numbers of clicks, and good rev share too. It's almost like they can crank up or down the earnings in order to keep you hooked into advertising them.