Outing Rogue Affiliates

[lojo]

I'm going to have to think about that for quite awhile AKA23. Thank you for posting. Any other thoughts?

[lojo]

Okay, i read it again... I agree that the definition of a 'rogue affiliate' should be expanded, and you did it beautifully. I would love to see more discussion.

i don't pretend to know the intracies of the business.

Do you make affiliate moneys from casinos that are rogued here and blacklisted elsewhere?

Please don't take offense, you know the esteem I hold you in for the gambler's sake; and I hope you know, by references in my posts to your site, that you have the best bonus info available to my knowledge.

I just believe there is a line... and any one who makes money off of casinos that do not pay their players, can be on the rogue side of the line. I am not black and white, I don't believe in the carrot and the stick. I want a win/win situation. And that isn't grey/gray.

A thief is a thief. A co-conspirator is just that.

Information for information's sake carries responsibility.

Bottom line in my opinion: You can share all the information you choose to, but if you make a penny off of a gambler who gets ripped off, YOU ripped the gambler off.

Out yourself as a clean affiliate if you are an affiliate, and please remember I want this thread to be win/win.


I would rather bring a rogue 'into the light' than affect their revenue stream, it's better for everybody; and I didn't only refer to the Rogue Pit, but all Blacklists.

Belee me, AKA, I know I may be over my head, but somebody's got to do this stuff. Challenge authority, especially your own. And I'll do the same.

Respect

[aka23]

Okay, i read it again... I agree that the definition of a 'rogue affiliate' should be expanded, and you did it beautifully. I would love to see more discussion.

i don't pretend to know the intracies of the business.

Do you make affiliate moneys from casinos that are rogued here and blacklisted elsewhere?
...

I am fairly certain I have never received affiliate payment from the casinos on the current rogue list. I have received payment from some casinos that appeared in the rogue section in the past, like the Fortune Lounge group (Microgaming) and 888.com .

[lojo]

I am fairly certain I have never received affiliate payment from the casinos on the current rogue list. I have received payment from some casinos that appeared in the rogue section in the past, like the Fortune Lounge group (Microgaming) and 888.com .

Excellent!!! Thank you for easing my mind. Where can we go from here?

[USA2112]

As time goes on, maybe you can 'rehab' rogue affiliate sites for a fee

Not sure if the pay would be the same, but I know the job would be easier.

Regarding promoting rogue casinos, I think it is more an issue of how the rogue casinos are promoted. Saying Rogue Casino X is great without explanation may fall under multiple categories above. However, saying Rogue Casino X is bad... play there at your own risk, does not.

On my site, I list all casinos that use the common softwares. This includes accredited casinos, rogue casinos, and casinos without affiliate programs. If I am aware of unexpected issues that may occur at the casino, I include a warning that describes the possible problems.. This allows players to make an informed decision about whether they want to play there or not. There are warnings about some accredited casinos, most of the rogues, and some casinos that are neither accredited or rogue. I hate when groups hide information from me because they think it is bad for me, and I wouldn't want to have a website that pretended certain casinos did not exist, simply because I think they are bad.

I see the point here about letting people make their own informed decisions, “ We are talking about adults ” can’t say I agree 100% though if there is an affiliate link that comes with the information on the rogue casino.

When it comes to online gambling you have experienced players that do their homework and have been around enough to know rogue casinos are rogue for a good reason and that’s why they don’t get bit by these casinos.

Then you have inexperience players that may be new to gambling altogether. These are the players that even though they have been well informed still may take an enticing bonus offer from a rogue casino compared to an average bonus from an accredited casino.

Accredited casino offers on average are 100% match bonus and average play through some times a little more. On the other hand, most Rogue casino’s usually offer match bonuses that are ridiculous like 400%, 600%, 900% and average play through and is clearly very enticing to the newbie‘s. This is the intensions of the rogue casino tactics, it is not to try and entice an experience player “ They just walk away ” But the newbie that’s a different story.

No pun intended! But it’s like you have two stray dogs and you throw two chicken bone’s in the back yard, one having a little chicken left on it and the other one has a hole lot of chicken left on it dowsed in Tabasco sauce, both dogs will smell the chicken bones but, the experience dog will leave the one that smells funny alone and the inexperienced dog even though he knows it smells funny will gobble it right up and get burned. Then after words do it again and neither dog will take the chicken bone with Tabasco sauce, question is though will both dog’s come back for another serving of what was thrown in the yard, I doubt it.




Watchdog sites like the Casinomeister are here also to inform players of rogue casinos and let players make their own decisions based on being well informed, and if players want to take certain risk and ignore the warnings that is up to them. There’s just one small difference, there’s no affiliate links for the casino attached to the information. Watchdog sites are not just for players they are also here to help webmasters and affiliates keep there sites clean of rogue casinos and it doe‘s help. Take today, if I would not have read this thread I would still be running Atlantic lounge, nice enticing offer too, $18 no deposit. But it is in the rogue pit for good reasons and I would not want to signup right now and I definitely would not suggest it for anyone else to signup right now, even with an explanation of the casino being rogue.

All casinos have a chance for redemption “ the same as players have decisions to make on where they signup and play, what offers they take and where they continue to play ” but until the casinos that use rogue tactics do come forward to resolve these issues with cheating players out of their cash like Atlantic lounge is doing right now, I will wait on advertising them and if they do come forward and resolve the issues, the offer will be right back where it was before I took it down. Rogue casinos will always be there but that doesn’t mean we have to advertise for them.

This is just my opinion and there was no offence intended. I just feel that the sooner the rogue casinos get out of the way an accredited casino may come along and take their place. Makes for better business, satisfied players and more income.

[aka23]

Accredited casino offers on average are 100% match bonus and average play through some times a little more. On the other hand, most Rogue casino’s usually offer match bonuses that are ridiculous like 400%, 600%, 900% and average play through and is clearly very enticing to the newbie‘s. This is the intensions of the rogue casino tactics, it is not to try and entice an experience player “ They just walk away ” But the newbie that’s a different story.

No pun intended! But it’s like you have two stray dogs and you throw two chicken bone’s in the back yard, one having a little chicken left on it and the other one has a hole lot of chicken left on it dowsed in Tabasco sauce, both dogs will smell the chicken bones but, the experience dog will leave the one that smells funny alone and the inexperienced dog even though he knows it smells funny will gobble it right up and get burned. Then after words do it again and neither dog will take the chicken bone with Tabasco sauce, question is though will both dog’s come back for another serving of what was thrown in the yard, I doubt it.

I wouldn't say "most" rogue casinos offer 400-900% bonuses. I believe the only ones on the "rogue casinos" list with bonuses this high are the Virtual and Casinova groups. There are also plenty of quality casinos with high bonuses. Not long ago, several accredited Microgaming casinos offered 400% bonuses. Two quality GV casinos offer 500+% bonuses. Some reputable Microgaming casinos entice new players with as much as $1000 free play, and some have a good chance of as much as a 1000% bonus. It's not the lure of a high bonus % that makes a casino rogue.

Yes, there are some players that may make a poor decision when they see an enticing bonus. There are also some players who may make poor decisions about gambling in general, and stand a chance to lose far more than just a sign-up bonus. If you are trying to protect information from players because they may make poor decisions, then one might come to the conclusion to not promote gambling at all. Some US legislatures have used similar arguments recently. I am not saying you should promote rogue casinos. I'm saying protecting information from players because they could get lured in by enticing bonuses is not a reason I'd choose.

[dominique]

Being an animal lover, I must set this one straight before I address the real subject:

question is though will both dog’s come back for another serving of what was thrown in the yard, I doubt it.

Neither dog will come back because chicken bones splinter and never should be fed to dogs. Both dogs died from slit intestines.

Now to the real topic.

IMO affiliates need to spend time on establishing contact with all the groups they advertise. If they don't bother to do that, they can't stand behind their players because the casino groups will just ignore them should there be a problem.

Casinomeister and my site likely agree 90% to 95% of the time on who is rogue. Occasionally he will rogue someone I don't, or I will rogue someone he doesn't. This isn't because we talked it over and disagreed, it's just based on player experiences from the different sites. It's not an exact science and has a lot of variables.

I think every affiliate needs to ask themselves:

"If something goes wrong at this casino, am I in a position to intervene?"

That is the first criteria I use. If I can't successfully mediate there, you just won't find the place on my site. This makes it very difficult for brand new affiliates, because it takes time to establish the rapport that later will enable you to properly represent players.

Casinomeister has always been incredible that way, he would mediate even for players who go to play at places listed in the Casinomeister rogue section. I am not sure you can appreciate how hard that is.

It's a lot easier if you stick with places you know you can talk to reasonably.

Not every affiliate can or needs to be a Casinomeister. Not everyone has the nerves to deal with Rogues. But every affiliate should be able to stand behind their player community.

Being an affiliate is a slippery slope. When you are new to the scene, you know as little as new players and will fall in traps and list bad casinos. New affiliates don't all find message boards like Casinomeister and CAP where they can gather information. I remember when I first started I listed Silver Sands because they offered free games for my site and I thought people would like to play and practice for free. It was months before I found message boards and heard about all the bad stuff.

So, while are a lot of scummy sites are from scamming affiliates who are just out for a quick buck, there are well meaning innocents in that group too.

Affiliates can't just gather info about whatever casinos they decide to represent and build sites and worry about google etc, they also need to spend time travelling the web, reading message boards and establishing relationships with the places they list.

While that quickly turns into more than a fulltime job, it's really the only way to provide a good service.

I don't think simply sticking to the Casinomeister rogue list does the trick, although it of course helps a lot. Each affiliate needs to establish a safety net and support system for players and limit the casino listings to places where they can be confident that things can be resolved.

And that is still no guarantee that a casino won't pull a fast one, but it makes things a lot safer.

There is one misconception often heard from players: The affiliate is beholden to the casino because of the money aspect. That's nonsense.

Firstly, the affiliate has as many casinos to choose from as the player. If a casino does badly by players, it most likely cheats affiliates too. Affiliates get cheated constantly, and most of the time it's by crappy casinos. DUH!

Secondly, whether casino A or casino B pays for my services is totally irrelevant to me. If A misbehaves, I drop them and put up B. This makes for a measure of "natural selection".

Casinos to advertise are a dime a dozen. No single casino has any power over an affiliate. Now if you see a site advertising only one casino group, you know they are dependent on that group for income, and hence can't be objective. But places that list a number of different casinos could care less if they drop some of them. It doesn't affect the bottom line at all, income just shifts to a more deserving place.

As player, I would also look at the usefulness of the affiliate site. Is there useful information? Has the affiliate done any legwork for you?

Clicking on an affiliate link is like a vote. Players have the power to keep useful affiliates online and make the bad ones close shop. An affiliate site that gets no clicks will shut down, no one can afford to work for free.

So if you click on spam mail and crappy sites that list rogues, you are keeping them in business and perpetuating the problem. And at the same time you are not giving places like Casinomeister the support they need to stay online.

Use your votes wisely! They matter and they shape the whole online gambling scene. Ultimately, all the power lies with the player.

[USA2112]

Neither dog will come back because chicken bones splinter and never should be fed to dogs. Both dogs died from slit intestines.

The statement was just hypothetical, I’ll change that to a steak bone.

[dominique]

The statement was just hypothetical, I’ll change that to a steak bone.

I know.

I just thought I'd take the opportunity to make that comment, lots of people don't know and lots of dogs die when people just meant to be nice.

[Elgoog]

wow...
couldn't have said it better Dominique

and:

There is one misconception often heard from players: The affiliate is beholden to the casino because of the money aspect. That's nonsense.

Firstly, the affiliate has as many casinos to choose from as the player. If a casino does badly by players, it most likely cheats affiliates too. Affiliates get cheated constantly, and most of the time it's by crappy casinos. DUH!

actually players and affiliates are in the same camp