Rogue Poker Affiliates - Response to Jetset in Other Thread

[pokeraddict]

Jetset Wrote in a previous thread

This sounds like an interesting topic, and I for one would like to better understand how poker affiliates rogue the system?

I felt this needed a new thread.

I have been webmaster for a rakeback affiliate directory for 8 months now. I work closely with around 35 poker affiliates and have had contact with many more rogue or borderline affiliates. I have learned a bunch about how it works and how others exploit it. There are many ways affiliates exploit the system or have some other rogue habits. Depending on your point of view some of this may be rogue and some of it not. Not everyone agrees with rakeback, it is a newish affiliate idea that has exploded but has not always been met in open arms by traditional affiliates. I will list all of the known rogue issues to me, related to rakeback or not.

The number one rogue issue IMO with poker affiliates has been promising rakeback only to disappear or otherwise not pay. This is a huge problem. The point of my site was to try and legitimize what was a "backroom" deal. Affiliates would meet players in 2+2 or other forums by PM and not really have any way to know if they were legit. Affiliates running off with the money is not as big of an issue now that many sites pay automatically to the player's account and rakeback has also become very popular creating a mainstream population of rakeback players and legit rakeback affiliates. What happens though is that this small population of rogue rakeback affiliates disappear and reincarnate under new emails and new domains, some arent even smart enough to register their new domains in other names or privately. They also go to RGP and post from the same IP as a previously vanished affiliate. One affiliate group comes to mind that launched in April and already has had 4 websites and 5 emails they use.

There are other issues outside of rakeback. The biggest one is "poaching". Affiliate A signs up a player for Party Poker (just an example). The player is new to online poker and just plays fake money. Affiliate B comes along and says "Ill give you $xx to open up a Party Poker account through me" Player says"But I have an account there already" Affiliate B says "I will show you a way around that" and now they have poached this player from Affiliate A now getting the signup credit for a player already signed up. Some even consider getting a player to switch skins poaching. For example a player plays on Party Poker and finds an affiliate bonus code for Empire (A Party skin) 100% bonus up to $xxx and to some affiliates this player has been poached. Party is wishy washy on this as you are not suppose to have account on multiple skins but many have accounts most if not all of them without any problems.

Another poker affiliate issue is the website ripoff issue. This goes for casinos portals and it seems almost any other industry on the net. I have had my website copied on multiple occasions in some way, then of course they have the nerve to slap their own copyright on the bottom of the page. This seems to come up once a week on my site that an affiliate has had their site ripped off or makes the allegation. This goes from design, words, colors, text, charts and rakeback calculators. If you look through my "Rogue Affiliate Forum" you will see many affiliates have been removed for blatant copying of websites.

One last sleazy way comes to mind. There have been a few affiliates that instead of promoting themselves feel the need to bash other affiliates. When a legit affiliate posts in the ad section at RGP or in a commercial announcement section like CM has they are met with an attack by a shady affiliate trying to discredit them.

There is so much money to be made and rakeback has made it extremely competitive and controversial at the same time that it seems each day brings its own new challenge.

I hope that answered some questions and I hope it made sense.

[jetset]

Thanks, PA - with your permission I'll work up some editorial on this subject, using your thoughts as a base?

[dominique]

Very nice post, poker addict.

While we are pitched in somewhat opposing corners, upon close examination we pretty much agree on the salient points of this.

At CAP, we are not too fond of rake back. We tell affiliates to avoid promoting poker rooms that facilitate rakeback, even those that just look the other way. There is no point sending players there - someone will show up and spam the room and affiliates cannot make money there unless they join the rake back scene. We have a list of rooms we DO recommend people promote - rooms that oppose rake back.

The reason for this is primarily what poker addict has been talking about. Rake back has unfortunately created a criminal element among affiliates. Players are being herded into rake back agreements they do not need because they never deposit enough to make it worth while. They are promised things that are never kept. The affiliate disappears when it's time to pay up. One thing that is very disturbing also is that these rogue affiliates spam the poker rooms (everyone playing poker online has seen this I am sure) and taking players that have been signed up by other affiliates, teaching them how to open multiple accounts and putting them under their own code. Some rake back affiliates hire players to spam rooms for them.

This resulted in a recent big mess at the WSOP tournaments for Poker Rewards. Prima had locked the winner's account and the end result is that Poker Rewards couldn't send him to the WSOP. The guy did'nt understand that he had broken the rules and was going around posting in the forums about the issue. Unfortunately, it was discovered that the winner of the Tournament on June 19th was in direct breach of the Poker Rewards Terms and Conditions with over 17 valid accounts at Golden Tiger and other Prima properties.

So there are rogue affiliates running around telling players how to open multiple accounts to get rakeback. Then the player realizes rakeback isn't giving him much, he doesn't wager high enough amounts. But - lots of nice bonuses to be had. So now, armed with the education provided by the rogue affiliate, you have them signing up repeatedly to gain repeat bonuses.

Some poker rooms, such as Superior Poker, are avoiding contributing to this and pioneer by building in a "rake back" themselves in the form of a VIP reward that refunds parts of the rake to larger players, just as decent rake back affiliates like Poker Addict do.

Regarding Party Poker - they have some weird feature where some affiliates can incentivise players they did not bring to the table. They are expected to make a statement at CAP about this. On one hand they reject the rake back idea, on the other they install this odd feature. Some explanations are certainly needed, the situation is more than confusing. Many affiliates have stopped promoting Party Poker. Many are poised to pull them off their sites pending the explanation of this odd feature.

[mary]

That was a great post, thanks PA.

[pokeraddict]

just as decent rake back affiliates like Poker Addict do.

Just to be clear I am not an affiliate for any poker room. I simply run a website that is a directory for rakeback affiliates that I feel has done wonders to legitimize a business that many shady elements to it. Of course as Dominique stated rakeback has added a criminal element to some people who try over and over under different affiliate domains or emails to take people on rakeback signups with no intention to pay.

Jetset you may quote any part of any post or reword them however you need to make fit into an article.

http://www.rakerecycler.com/ is the latest example, as his website now pretty much says TOO BAD!

I also forgot the affiliate spam in poker rooms Dominique mentioned and poker is not all that is spammed although it is the most prominent, casinos, home loans, porn and others have been spammed there. Party finally removed the ability to hyperlink chat but that has not stopped them and yes it has been known that shady rakeback affiliates have paid players to spam poker rooms. Party has not listened to player suggestions that a player should have to make a real money deposit to be able to chat at any real money table. That should take care of at least 95% of the spam because someone could not just keep reopening accounts.

Dominique also has another good point, players that play very low limits will find rakeback to be lower then expected as it is really aimed at 2/4+ players or at least 1/2 or players expecting to make it higher up but especially aimed at current high volume players. A casual .50/1 player that plays 1000 hands a week will find after a month the rakeback is only $50, but now that an affiliate has taught him how to create multiple identities the 20% up to $100 sign up bonus is a much better deal so now this player may try to create new users over and over. These have been called gnomes or clones. Sometimes players get caught and have their funds confiscated when doing this over and over so now an honest player has now had greed take him over and now lost an entire deposit. This does not happen often but it does happen and is an idea I am sure many players would have never had on their own.

[jetset]

Working on this now...but this new information coming to light will have to be included too. I'll be in direct contact with you shortly, PA.

[deaning]

but now that an affiliate has taught him how to create multiple identities the 20% up to $100 sign up bonus is a much better deal so now this player may try to create new users over and over.

The Frankenstein of the poker world and no seperating the Einstein from the Frank in this case.

The "NEW" breed of affiliate webmaster is doing as such, luring players into a scam situation. 6 or so months ago I had to ban a new member of our poker forum who came in and PM'd a load of members promising free money, detailing how to defraud a particular room in great detail, and saw nothing at all wrong in his actions.

This, along with site scraping may be currently seen as an affiliate problem. Will this extend to the future annihlation of the affiliate model in general?

[dominique]

Originally Posted by deaning

Will this extend to the future annihlation of the affiliate model in general?

It may very well - in the gambling industry. Entirely too much greed here.

In all other online industries affiliates are and will continue to be the backbone of business, affiliates are the online sales force.

[realwtfsup]

I do not understand why someone sighing up people for poker rooms are against rakeback.

Someone plays thousands hands a month. The person who sent them to some poker room gets all the rake the poker room gives them?

[pokeraddict]

Originally Posted by realwtfsup

I do not understand why someone sighing up people for poker rooms are against rakeback.

Someone plays thousands hands a month. The person who sent them to some poker room gets all the rake the poker room gives them?

The affiliate would get a % of the rake back in most cases regardless of whether they are kicking some back to the player or not. This is why many affiliates who offer general portals are against it. Not only does it hurt margins but requires more work. Being a portal owner is a full time job in itself as is being a rakeback affiliate. It is very hard to be both, especially if your portal is busy or if you are a big affiliate.