Party Partners Certification Suspended

[dominique]

This is a press release by CAP:

Party Partners Certification Suspended at CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com

Internet Gaming Property Refuses to Honor Affiliate Relationships

Las Vegas, NV – 02/20/2006 – CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com (“CAP”) a leading online gaming industry resource, announced today that they are suspending the certification of Party Partners, otherwise known as Party Gaming plc. Party Gaming plc is the proprietor behind the largest online poker website, Party Poker. The move comes in response to the acquisition terms outlined for Empire Online the parent of EmpirePoker.com, a former Party Gaming licensee.

The $250m acquisition, which was announced on February 15, 2006, includes migrating Empire Poker players to a consolidated platform that no longer honors the affiliate relationship that initiated the player relationship. Under the new terms, affiliates who had participated in the Empire Online affiliate program will receive no compensation or consideration for the thousands of players they acquired for EmpirePoker.com. This is clearly in violation of the terms and conditions they had agreed to with Empire Online whereby they would receive compensation on the sales and value generated by their players for the life of their association with the poker room.

A company representative posted the following statement regarding the purchase at CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com:

“Party Gaming has taken a decisive step that consolidates our strong position in online poker and concludes our skins strategy that served us well in the early stages of development of PartyGaming. In a $250m deal, Empire Online has agreed to sell to us EmpirePoker.com and other associated white label and affiliate agreements relating to AceClub.com and StarluckCasino.com.”

The entire press release is available at www.partygaming.com.

PartyPartners was well aware that a substantial number of the players at EmpirePoker.com were referred by affiliate webmasters and that an agreement to compensate the affiliates for these players was in effect at the time of purchase.

Louis Fabiano, the Editor of CAP issued the following statement today, “As a result of this predatory action by Party Partners, CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com is left with no alternative but to suspend their certification at CAP and advise all affiliates to cease promotion of all PartyGaming clients until a satisfactory resolution to this problem can be worked out. Our affiliate webmasters have made it clear that they want a fair compensation plan that recognizes and rewards their efforts as previously agreed upon. It would be relatively easy for Party Partners to transfer all existing players and affiliate accounts to the PartyGaming platform and honor the existing terms and conditions. We are hopeful that PartyPartners will do the right thing and properly include their affiliate partners.”

You can follow the affiliate discussions of this issue at the following forum threads:

http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.c...ies.10068.html

http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.c...ire.10049.html

About CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com:
CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com “CAP” is the oldest and largest Internet gaming affiliate resource online. Casino Affiliate Programs features an active community forum, chat rooms, affiliate marketing tools, industry news/articles, scam alerts and a rigorous and distinguished certification process for casino affiliate programs. CAP Certified Partners are held in the highest regard and expected to protect the integrity of their affiliates and the industry as a whole.
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I sincerely hope that PartyGaming and Tradal will remedy this situation asap.

It seems a shame to discredit their properties in such a manner. This kind of action shows everyone that these companies cannot be trusted.

[Chatmaster]

Great find Dom thanks!

[dominique]

Scurvy Dog posted this at CAP, and he hits it right on the button:

I have to admit that I'm baffled thay anyone is surprised by Party's actions, in regards to this issue. This is the same company that knee-capped its own licensees by decoupling the shared player base in a premeditated move to then buy those same distressed properties later for pennies on the dollar.

It doesn't excuse their actions, as far as cutting affiliates off from the Empire player base they spent years to build up, but it shouldn't surprise anyone. If they're willing to blatantly screw their own licensees, it shouldn't surprise anyone that they'll bend over affiliates, as well. As far as costs to cut, now that they've gotten the skins out of the way, affiliates are next.

Scan through the PartyGaming threads here. It should take you about thirty seconds to realize that PartyGaming would absolutely love to sever all affiliate ties (except for maybe a few super affiliates) entirely, now that they've reached critical mass. It's no coincidence that affiliates are having so many issues with frozen accounts, complete and utter lack of response from account managers, missing stats, missing payments, and stolen player bases.

I can't help but think that it's best to just move on at this point, and completely write off any revenues from Party/Empire/whatever skin. The writing has been on the wall for awhile, for the vast majority of Party affiliates. There are plenty of good programs out there that actually care about maintaining and developing relationships with affiliates, and are committed to honoring contracts and agreements.

Most importantly:

If they're willing to blatantly screw their own licensees, it shouldn't surprise anyone that they'll bend over affiliates, as well.

Yep, and guess who's next?

Players of course.

[Casinomeister]

Hi dom,

Make sure if/when you copy and paste links that they are not truncated.

These are the links that are referred to:

http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.c...ies.10068.html

http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.c...ire.10049.html

As a side note: IMO Party Poker et al are too big for their britches. Party Gaming has more or less totally ignored the glitchy software that iGlobal Media uses. This has been brought to their attention a number of times> They were even given an award in January for having their head in the sand:
http://www.casinomeister.com/bestworst2005.html#head1

It's really an odd thing when Party Gaming's CEO stated in his presentation at the EIG in Nice this year that affiliates are extremely important to their marketing since it makes up for 30% of their player acquisition. I guess they've figured that affiliates are a dime a dozen. What a shame.