GP, MGS, and affiliates

[Casinomeister]

re. Grand Prive: I have located a record of my actual stats on an old computer but haven't had a chance yet to hook it up long enough to pull all the data. It will show without a doubt that the figures given to eCOGRA were selective and legacy players were excluded.

Grand Prive owes me at least 10 times what they propose to pay.

I also have located the previous aff managers who should be able to give information about the missing data.

Sorry I don't have all this ready yet, too much has been going on (such as ddos attacks and the resulting introduction of additional security).

MGS made it clear that the migration between Referspot and Grand Prive's affiliate program did in fact occur. MGS`'s role was to ensure that the software functioned properly - which it did.

My question is - if the migration of players from one program to the other was flawed, why didn't affiliates notice it back then? That doesn't make any sense.

As far as I know, the GP aff program ran for some time before they closed it. Why didn't affiliates complain that the players weren't migrated back in 2007-08?

Is a well known fact in this industry that the lifespan of a player is 3-5 months - bonus beaters about 3-5 days . If you haven't promoted this casino group for three years or so, what is to be expected? This casino group was in various rogue/blacklists for some time. How many of your players would you expect to still be playing there? Do you expect your players to remain loyal to a casino you blacklist? Just some things to kick around...

[AussieDave]

Some good points & food for thought too.

What I don't get and NO one can answer it or don't want to answer it...
But leading up to the eCOGRA investigation it was purported that 100's if not 1000's of affiliates had their livelihoods affected by GP.

However only 75 (or so) affiliates submitted claim forms. Unless most of the 100's (1000's) of affiliates were living under a rock when all this was going on, I don't understand why more affiliates (even a couple 100) didn't submit claim forms...

Things like that just don't add up...


Cheers



Dave

[spearmaster]

MGS made it clear that the migration between Referspot and Grand Prive's affiliate program did in fact occur. MGS`'s role was to ensure that the software functioned properly - which it did.

My question is - if the migration of players from one program to the other was flawed, why didn't affiliates notice it back then? That doesn't make any sense.

As far as I know, the GP aff program ran for some time before they closed it. Why didn't affiliates complain that the players weren't migrated back in 2007-08?

No one has said that it did NOT function properly when GP still had an affiliate program.

The problem is that we do not know how the integration was done - whether or not a separate script had to be run on a monthly basis to pull in the data from those legacy Referspot players (and presumably not run since the GP affiliate program was shut down).

Simply mapping the players over does not ensure that the correct data is automatically being pulled by the new software. It just means that the basic information has been moved over (ie. name, address, birth date, account number etc.) - it doesn't necessarily mean that gaming data is automatically pulled by the new system WITHOUT help from the old one.

What I want to know is exactly HOW the integration took place and what measures were necessary AFTER the integration in order to make sure that legacy players' gaming data was being updated?

Is a well known fact in this industry that the lifespan of a player is 3-5 months - bonus beaters about 3-5 days . If you haven't promoted this casino group for three years or so, what is to be expected? This casino group was in various rogue/blacklists for some time. How many of your players would you expect to still be playing there? Do you expect your players to remain loyal to a casino you blacklist? Just some things to kick around...

Completely irrelevant - are you SURE that all players quit after 5 months? You do remember that perhaps 5% of players actually visit forums - and thus would've seen blacklists? Do you think that everyone that ever downloaded a casino from a Casinomeister link comes back to read CM regularly? If a player was being treated fairly by a casino, why should he/she leave if the marketer is suddenly not happy with them?

This presumption of lifespan of players needs to be thrown straight into the bin. It has no bearing whatsoever on real player activity. It has the same amount of weight as an "average CPA value" across the board for all players and all affiliates - absolutely ZILCH.

[vinylweatherman]

The people best placed to answer the player lifespan question are the affiliates themselves. Many are interested in this fiasco, so they could do their own stats on this from their own record, and pool the data to find out the lifetimes of their players.

I know for a fact that my lifespan at quite a few casinos can be measured in YEARS, and a factor in this is whether loyalty is valued, and service is reasonable. Dropping me like a hot potato from receiving what are billed as "regular loyalty offers" is what makes me stop playing and uninstall. Often though, casinos learn from this, and entice me back by paying more attention to me. It is VERY unusual for me to go so far as close an account, so in my case inactivity would be measured by whether I have played in the past few months. It does NOT mean I will never return.

Grand Prive in this case has sought to narrow the remit of this investigation so matters such as this are NOT looked at, and have supposedly wiped old data from the systems. Affiliates who kept their old data can check it to see what happened when the program closed, and extrapolate it into the year when compensation values were calculated from new data. What should NOT be seen is the "fell off a cliff" scenario, since PLAYERS were not aware this dispute was going on, and were receiving the same level of service from GP as always. Players would NOT have suddenly fled on Dec 1st, it would have been a gradual process of reduction, as old players stopped playing, and no new ones took their place. There will have been some legacy players that remained loyal for YEARS, and it is most of all these that should NOT have suddenly quit on Dec 1st. Old Referspot players who remained active for years should be looked for in the old records, and then their activity extrapolated into the 2009 period. Only when widespread blacklisting of GP occurred would this have caused SOME players to reconsider their loyalty, whatever GP was offering them.

[dominique]

MGS made it clear that the migration between Referspot and Grand Prive's affiliate program did in fact occur. MGS`'s role was to ensure that the software functioned properly - which it did.

My question is - if the migration of players from one program to the other was flawed, why didn't affiliates notice it back then? That doesn't make any sense.

As far as I know, the GP aff program ran for some time before they closed it. Why didn't affiliates complain that the players weren't migrated back in 2007-08?

Is a well known fact in this industry that the lifespan of a player is 3-5 months - bonus beaters about 3-5 days . If you haven't promoted this casino group for three years or so, what is to be expected? This casino group was in various rogue/blacklists for some time. How many of your players would you expect to still be playing there? Do you expect your players to remain loyal to a casino you blacklist? Just some things to kick around...

I don't expect players to stop playing at a casino they have played at for YEARS because I blacklist the operator over an aff issue. Maybe a player issue, but not an aff issue. The reason I sent players to Referspot in the first place is because they did have exceptional retention and many players played there for years. That makes me assume they were happy. And that makes me send more players. And that makes it very unlikely that ALL of them, including in the cases of several affs I spoke to, quit at the same time. Not gonna happen over an aff issue. New players may be leery of going there, but someone who has found pleasure in playing there for years isn't gonna quit, in tandem with likely hundreds, overnight, because affs scream foul play. Besides, why would they even think to search for "Grand Prive" on google and see the blacklistings? They needed no info, they were playing there for years.

Many of my players play loyally at the same casinos for years, they may have a list of them they hop between, but they do tend to continue to go where they are treated well.

The transfer of players was anything but troublefree, took months longer than promised, and caused long (now archived) threads at CAP. Some affiliates swear their players were never transferred in the first place.

The transfer, according to comments by the affiliate managers at the time on CAP, was handled by MGS, and it was put on an MGS platform.

When the transfer was complete, there was a "quickstats" section on the first page after login. It displayed Referspot players and Grand Prive players SEPERATELY. You knew exactly which players came from the Referspot legacy, and which didn't. For me, as well as the other affs I spoke to, the compensation offer fit the Grand prive stats, but did NOT include the Referspot legacy. In my case, that means I am owed over ten times what I was offered. The others have similair discrepancies.

The closure of Grand Prive Affiliates happened after MGS decided to withdraw from the US market, and hence affiliates who had previously been prolific now sent few if any players.

These affiliates became a monkey on Grand Prive's back, still needing to be paid according to contract, for as long as the players continued to play there.

Affiliates only get paid by performance - if they make money for the casino they get paid, if they don't, they don't. I really don't see why Grand Prive should be able to continue to profit from our services through this day and into the future without paying as contractually agreed. They are continuing to benefit from our work without having to pay for it. And it causes a lot of ill will among affiliates.

I automatically trusted any program with MGS software - not anymore. That is the worst result of all of this - not that I am out of money, but that I cannot trust contracts in this industry anymore. Nothing keeps anyone from doing with impunity what Grand Prive did. And even with scrutiny from both eCOGRA and MGS, they are succeeding in exactly what they set out to do: Get rid of the monkey on their back. Get rid of the now useless affiliates who are still eligible collect payment for their past services, as long as Grand Prive profits from them.

With the deletion of the aff site - who is to prove anything? Is there a copy rattling around someplace at MGS? Are the people who worked on this transfer still there? Don't they remember the approximate volume? The way the data was fed into the system?

I think if MGS truly wanted the truth, they could find it.

[Dave]

My question is - if the migration of players from one program to the other was flawed, why didn't affiliates notice it back then? That doesn't make any sense.

As far as I know, the GP aff program ran for some time before they closed it. Why didn't affiliates complain that the players weren't migrated back in 2007-08?

Gene from casinocrush posted quite a bit about this at the time. The threads are in the password protected area of CAP now, but if you view the Google page below, you can sort of see what the threads were about.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=...cdf8cbbf06dc4f

Regarding player lifespan -- dozens of the players I've referred have been playing for years.

[dominique]

The transfer itself was issue #1, some affiliates DID lose players then.

Now we are talking about issue #2 - the magical disappearance of active players that WERE transferred correctly.

Should MGS want copies of the CAP threads pertaining to these issues, please contact me.

[bonustreak]

There should be several threads on CAP back when this merge happend back in the day I know that myself, Casino Crush and a few others were ripping them apart back then. There is even thread where at the time the casino manager was Iwin I believe who bluntly told me ..well yes this new 1 player login across all the casino sites is cross marketing.. cross marketing is after all standard industry practice! Many times Referspot/GP was called out by myself for shady things and that was when I said we are not going to promote this brand anymore and just earn off the residual income.

[AussieDave]

At the GPWA they avoid my question and here now too

[spearmaster]

Interesting post by giggles at gpwa:

What i don't understand is back when i was still earning with GP my stats where always split....Grand Prive stats and Legacy stats...now if they still have the GP stats and info, why don't they have the Referspot stats and info...they were both included in our accounts all the way up to the end when they shut down GP......so it makes no sense for them to say they lost, deleted, etc...referspot stats .....?????

Can someone explain to me how they can still have one but not the other..?

Now we're getting somewhere. How is it that there are "legacy" stats and "GP stats"?

This is a very strong signal that there was NOT a complete integration done here.