2 Questions For Affiliates

[funeral979]

I don't consider myself an expert on all things affiliate, so wonder if anyone could shed some light on these topics:

1) There are some casinos that I have been playing with for quite some time, and obviously I would not remember if I clicked thru an affiliates banner or not (and a few years ago I wouldn't have known the difference anyhow). Is a casino obligated to divulge this information to me if I ask? If not, is there any other means to find out?

2) I was a player at Twin Aces Casino back in the USA friendly Playtech days, then stayed on board when Main Street moved to RTG. Twin Aces also had a name change (Vegas Casino Online). In a case like this, when a casino undergoes a software and name change, would the players account still be under the affiliate (assuming they clicked thru an affiliate of course)? Or would this vary depending on the casino?

Sorry if these have been answered before but could not find any info about it. Thanks!

 

[JHV]

I don't consider myself an expert on all things affiliate, so wonder if anyone could shed some light on these topics:

1) There are some casinos that I have been playing with for quite some time, and obviously I would not remember if I clicked thru an affiliates banner or not (and a few years ago I wouldn't have known the difference anyhow). Is a casino obligated to divulge this information to me if I ask? If not, is there any other means to find out?

2) I was a player at Twin Aces Casino back in the USA friendly Playtech days, then stayed on board when Main Street moved to RTG. Twin Aces also had a name change (Vegas Casino Online). In a case like this, when a casino undergoes a software and name change, would the players account still be under the affiliate (assuming they clicked thru an affiliate of course)? Or would this vary depending on the casino?

Sorry if these have been answered before but could not find any info about it. Thanks!

1. No, and it would not be in their interests to do so. I cannot think of any online casino (although I could be wrong) who would inform a player if they signed up under an affiliate link if the player requested that information. I definitely cannot see any casino giving a player specific affiliate information relating to their signup.

But this occasionally happens in poker, where a player will get sent to me via a room (likely a manager who can't take the player's 25 emails a day anymore) and says: "Jonny, this guy is under your link. Help him out with rakeback, will you?" - obviously I've never heard of the player in my life and he's never heard of me, but when rakeback is in play, sometimes it's just easier to concede to obsessed players.

But even in poker, unless the player is claiming they signed up under a rakeback deal and not paid (i.e. alleging affiliate fraud / misconduct), poker rooms will be loathe to give players any affiliate info and will often just say "No."

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2. This is much more interesting question. It's my opinion affiliates almost *always* get screwed in this situation. Oh, they'll claim that your players were all transferred across to your link, but yea, apparently none converted. Sorry! However, as they were saying this to me, I'm watching my friend who did convert - and he was under my link - so I just cut ties with those rooms very quickly.

I would guess, apart from the shaving, reassigning high revenue players, and endless hi-jinks - this is one of the most common spots where affiliates get screwed (when a casino merges, is rebranded or whatever).

 

[funeral979]

Any other thoughts on this subject?

 

[aksana]

1. If you have affiliate links and banners, you can check your affiliate stats at affiliate programs. if you don't remember your login details, you can contact these affiliate programs, and they will help you. But don't say to them that you played from your affiliate links. Also you may read T&Cs of affiliate programs, some of them allow affiliates to play from their affiliate links, some of them - not.
If you don't remember these affiliates programs, you can find links to these affiliate programs on casino websites.

2. It depends on an affiliate program. Some of them ask to open a new account, some of them transfer all accounts with all players to the new website. As I remember, Mainstreet requires to create a new account, and after they transferred all player base to the new account. Contact Mainstreet, explain your situation, and they will help you to know your stats.

And any questions regarding affiliate accounts, affiliate stats, contact affiliate programs directly. And don't say that you played from your affiliate links if you are not sure whether it's allowed or not.

 

[funeral979]

1. If you have affiliate links and banners, you can check your affiliate stats at affiliate programs. if you don't remember your login details, you can contact these affiliate programs, and they will help you. But don't say to them that you played from your affiliate links. Also you may read T&Cs of affiliate programs, some of them allow affiliates to play from their affiliate links, some of them - not.
If you don't remember these affiliates programs, you can find links to these affiliate programs on casino websites.

2. It depends on an affiliate program. Some of them ask to open a new account, some of them transfer all accounts with all players to the new website. As I remember, Mainstreet requires to create a new account, and after they transferred all player base to the new account. Contact Mainstreet, explain your situation, and they will help you to know your stats.

And any questions regarding affiliate accounts, affiliate stats, contact affiliate programs directly. And don't say that you played from your affiliate links if you are not sure whether it's allowed or not.

Maybe you misunderstood my question. I am not an affiliate. I am asking these questions from a players perspective. For example if I had an issue with Mainstreet (as an example), and I signed up so long ago that I am not sure if I simply went through their website or clicked thru an affiliate......is there anyway to find out? (JHV stated a casino probably would not volunteer this information).

I keep track of this now, in case I ever have an issue with the casino, but what about back when I was unsure?

Hope this makes sense!

 

[AussieDave]

Nothing stopping you from asking.
But it could fall into the category of privileged information, privacy issues and such.



Cheers

Dave

 

[aksana]

Maybe you misunderstood my question. I am not an affiliate. I am asking these questions from a players perspective. For example if I had an issue with Mainstreet (as an example), and I signed up so long ago that I am not sure if I simply went through their website or clicked thru an affiliate......is there anyway to find out? (JHV stated a casino probably would not volunteer this information).

I keep track of this now, in case I ever have an issue with the casino, but what about back when I was unsure?

Hope this makes sense!

yes, really misunderstood your question, sorry.
1) I think casinos won't give you any information.
2) Maybe yes (because we can't know it), Mainstreet transferred all players of the affiliates to his/her new accounts when they changed their software.

 

[dominique]

Casinos neither give affiliate info to players nor player info to affiliates. And that's the way it should be. Info given to a casino needs to be safe for all.

As mentioned above, poker can be different IF it involves a player asking for rakeback. Then the poker room may contact the affiliate to see about giving out the rakeback.

In the second case, some casinos will try to map the player over properly, some will make a half-assed attempt, and some will just not do it at all.

I can't help but wonder why this interests you?

 

[funeral979]

I can't help but wonder why this interests you?

Morbid curiosity?:icon_twis

Maybe the extra safety net of another go to person in case a problem arose?
I don't have a particular issue at the moment, just thought it would be nice to know.

 

[hippo925]

Morbid curiosity?:icon_twis

Maybe the extra safety net of another go to person in case a problem arose?
I don't have a particular issue at the moment, just thought it would be nice to know.

Excellent reason. I have seen affiliates go to bat for their players and indeed it would be a great thing to know. That's a very important role for some of the good affiliates, though it does get overlooked / unappreciated at times.

 

[dominique]

It's likely a good idea to keep a list of who you sigend up through for what, or just stick with who you trust... says she who has no list of casino logins

 

[JHV]

Casinos neither give affiliate info to players nor player info to affiliates. And that's the way it should be. Info given to a casino needs to be safe for all.

As mentioned above, poker can be different IF it involves a player asking for rakeback. Then the poker room may contact the affiliate to see about giving out the rakeback.

In the second case, some casinos will try to map the player over properly, some will make a half-assed attempt, and some will just not do it at all.

I can't help but wonder why this interests you?

This post is spot on. I should have clarified more that most poker rooms will NOT give a poker affiliate your personal info (including name for most rooms). And this is how it should be. Can be tricky for rakeback affiliates if players have forgotten to notify us of their username - and make the assumption that we get their info when we certainly don't (for most rooms, that is) - but every day when this happens, I do a 4 day count before we receive an angry email from the player demanding why their stats aren't showing, and we have a template to trigger kindly explaining that we effectively need players to "claim" their username to allow us to pull the data to show players their individual data.

With some rooms where we have an established relationship, they might let us have a bit more info than they would normally as they realise it's purely to assist the player. But I'm talking first name and initial kind of stuff - affiliates should not receive private information from poker rooms, although I'd personally have no problem if a room sent a player to us if they'd forgotten what rakeback site they'd signed up at or something whilst drunk or whatever.

The poker rooms never do though - I guess to protect rev share affiliates who aren't operating on the rakeback model, but I think they should be able to distinguish between the two kinds of rev share affiliates myself. It's not a huge deal though - and as I post this I realise how boring all that would be to a non-poker affiliate, and possibly even to a rakeback one

 

[love2winalot]

What about the Wizardofodds site? as example. He is an affiliate, who says he will help out if a player, "WHO CLICKED HIS LINK", if there is a payment issue, or something like that. How would he know the difference between someone who did click his link, and someone else who is just claiming to have clicked his link?

If you want the extra protection of having someone go to bat for you, how can they do that if they don't know who you are?

 

[JHV]

What about the Wizardofodds site? as example. He is an affiliate, who says he will help out if a player, "WHO CLICKED HIS LINK", if there is a payment issue, or something like that. How would he know the difference between someone who did click his link, and someone else who is just claiming to have clicked his link?

If you want the extra protection of having someone go to bat for you, how can they do that if they don't know who you are?

You gotta admit, this is a pretty good point.

My guess is that Bryan and the Wizard and respected affiliates (like most affiliates who establish a good working relationship with their business partners at the various rooms) are given the information they need to assist them.

Like, a couple times an online poker affiliate manager may have 'technically' given me private information against their stated Privacy Guarantees but I assure you (in my case) it's only occurred in situations where we have a long-standing partnership and they know it's purely to assist the player either with a data display issue or with a player complaint.

In one case, where a player ran a CC fraud scam which the poker room passed on a proportionate amount because I was unlucky enough for the scammer to use my link to open an account and immediately do large chargebacks - wow, that poker room was really out of line there, I just realise, making me wear a % of his crimes - anyway, in the resulting post-event back and forth discussions, I got substantial information on him including private information not just from that room but other rooms targeted by the same guy using completely different rakeback links (I had friends working there and rooms share ID info like this - the logic of using an affiliate link when you're planning CC fraud is completely lost on me) but I stress this is a clear case of CC fraud (deposit / dump / cashout / chargeback - all very quickly, before the rooms could lock the accounts involved).

There is a valid issue here I think the OP is either making, or has gotten me thinking about, anyway.

If those Rome jokers decided to release my information on the argument that I'd CC charged back the money they stole from me (the first CC chargeback of my life that was gaming-related, with the other two of my life being non-gaming related and very much black-and-white bank accepting blame for sending live / active replacement card out in mail, which was maxed out before even getting to my city, etc) - if Rome, the staff of whom publicly lied multiple times on this board in a painfully poorly thought out and clumsily executed and ethical despicable attempt to defend their actions, used that justification to give my details to someone in the way I was given details to assist in the police inquiry....there's a serious issue there. Actually, just Rome having my details makes me nervous - although Noah gives me the impression they're desperately trying to make a decent show of it after a disastrous start.

 

[hippo925]

What about the Wizardofodds site? as example. He is an affiliate, who says he will help out if a player, "WHO CLICKED HIS LINK", if there is a payment issue, or something like that. How would he know the difference between someone who did click his link, and someone else who is just claiming to have clicked his link?

If you want the extra protection of having someone go to bat for you, how can they do that if they don't know who you are?

Excellent point! I do know for a fact that in one particular case, i signed up to a casino through an affiliate's site and the affiliate knew who i was. In fact, the affiliate emailed me directly. So obviously, this information was shared in this case. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but it would seem to be necessary if one of the benefits to signing up through an affiliate is extra support.

 

[Webzcas]

I don't consider myself an expert on all things affiliate, so wonder if anyone could shed some light on these topics:

1) There are some casinos that I have been playing with for quite some time, and obviously I would not remember if I clicked thru an affiliates banner or not (and a few years ago I wouldn't have known the difference anyhow). Is a casino obligated to divulge this information to me if I ask? If not, is there any other means to find out?

No they are not obliged to give you this information and it is very unlikely they would offer it to you if asked. Likewise an affiliate is not given any information about a particular player - other than the stats provided by the affiliate program software.

This is how it should be IMO

2) I was a player at Twin Aces Casino back in the USA friendly Playtech days, then stayed on board when Main Street moved to RTG. Twin Aces also had a name change (Vegas Casino Online). In a case like this, when a casino undergoes a software and name change, would the players account still be under the affiliate (assuming they clicked thru an affiliate of course)? Or would this vary depending on the casino?

Sorry if these have been answered before but could not find any info about it. Thanks!

The players should transfer across, but whether this happens in all cases is doubtful and hard to tell. As there is no independent auditing of affiliate programs, affiliates have to trust their partners.

 

[funeral979]

Some very good points made, although I cannot really understand the 'privacy' argument.

Lets say I downloaded and signed up thru an affiliates site at Casino XXX several years ago. I deposited a few times and lost, got frustrated, and uninstalled the casino shortly thereafter. Now this year im not having any luck at my usual casinos, so I decide to give Casino XXX another go. I probably don't remember my password, and if I have a new computer i'll need my login as well. Chances are I didn't save this information as I didn't think I would be playing there again. Of course the casino will happily supply me with this information. Why wouldn't they tell me what affiliate site I signed up with if I asked that as well? Its just another piece of information I forgot through the years (like my casino login). Its not like im asking for something that wasn't easily available to me at signup.

The only motive it seems is that either (A) they do not want the nuisance if a problem arose and there would be possible affiliate intervention or (B) they are keeping all the profits for themselves.....or both.

 

[Webzcas]

Supposing the casinos did provide willingly the information not just to the player but also the affiliate.

What is therefore to stop some affiliates adding the email address of the player to a mailing list, to be used to promote other casinos. Thus enticing the player at the casino to play somewhere else.

Unless a player signs up to a Portals Forum or subscribes to a Portal's Newsletter, the portal webmaster should not have or be given details of the players who it's site or sites refers.

 

[Jasminebed]

Before my casinomeister membership, I joined reputable sites, as well as a rogue from a certain affiliate. They promote many other rogues too, and I quit playing at the reputable ones as well because I did not want this person to profit financially from me.

I've signed up at sites since either through Casinomeister, or affiliates who are members here at CM. I'm not always sure which ones (although most of them I know). I've also signed up directly at times. Affiliate payments are a big part of the bottom line for a casino. 3Dice choose not to have an affiliate program (although there is a friend referral), so I know I joined them directly.

A question for the affiliates though. If I join through your site, and then later join a sister site through offers sent via the casino, am I in your books still? Or should I revisit your site and join the new venue through you?

 

[Webzcas]

A question for the affiliates though. If I join through your site, and then later join a sister site through offers sent via the casino, am I in your books still?

Most affiliate sites should and will if they perform cross marketing assign that player to the affiliate. Although I am sure this has not happened many a time.

 

[dominique]

Actually, this is only supposed to be sure if you actually go back to the affiliate in question and use their link to do it.

Most casinos will credit the last affiliate you visited, or themselves if you type in the casino address.

Different casinos do have different policies regarding this, and many ignore their own policies and bypass the affiliate wherever they can.

Hence, the only true way you can assure yourself that you will stay with one affiliate is to go through only their links.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Surely affiliate sites are just a web address. NO private information is released surely by a casino telling a player they signed up through www(dot)whatever(dot)com.

 

[mojo]

Surely affiliate sites are just a web address. NO private information is released surely by a casino telling a player they signed up through www(dot)whatever(dot)com.

In the past, I've done and seen many contests and promotion give-aways where the terms by the casino is the player must be from the hosting affiliates banner. The casino will tell me whether the player is from my banner or not and that's it. They don't tell me anything else. The player can dispute that, I can't as it's confidential and i am not privvy to that info. However, I've seen players ask the casino many times where they signed up from.

This also applies to affiliate testing. If I ask a friend to sign up under my banner and make a deposit and it doesn't show up in my stats, I'm going to question it.

Do some casinos not allow this anymore?

 

[vinylweatherman]

In the past, I've done and seen many contests and promotion give-aways where the terms by the casino is the player must be from the hosting affiliates banner. The casino will tell me whether the player is from my banner or not and that's it. They don't tell me anything else. The player can dispute that, I can't as it's confidential and i am not privvy to that info. However, I've seen players ask the casino many times where they signed up from.

This also applies to affiliate testing. If I ask a friend to sign up under my banner and make a deposit and it doesn't show up in my stats, I'm going to question it.
Do some casinos not allow this anymore?

If you tell them it was a friend, and you got them to sign up, they might worry you were trying some kind of scam, BUT, how else can an affiliate check they are not getting screwed by the program?

Programs that do not allow affiliates any means of checking tracking and allocation may have something to hide. If they were doing wrong, it would be near impossible to find out.

Casinos shouldn't worry about friends of players signing up, and many even have "refer a friend" offers. However, referring a friend seems to be a fast track to getting an erroneous "red flag" on your casino accounts, because there are OBVIOUSLY going to be "connections" between friends, which might then show up in activity logs from their casino acounts.

I think there was a thread about an error in tracking that was "busted" because the affiliate kept their own stats on what percentage of click-throughs ended up signing up - and when the rate fell pretty much to zero they demanded an investigation. I think this was followed by a test sign-up (with no intent to play "fraudulently") which showed it was NOT tracked and allocated.

It might therefore be possible to test tracking yet NOT create a REAL MONEY account. Even if a real money account were created, an audit is usually done only on the first withdrawal, yet it should surely show up on the stats as a created, but currently unused, new account.

 

[GrandMaster]

Surely affiliate sites are just a web address. NO private information is released surely by a casino telling a player they signed up through www(dot)whatever(dot)com.

Businesses don't have privacy rights, unlike people. I would argue that the identity of the affiliate is part of the personal information held about the player, so any casino based in the EU should supply it as part of a data protection request. Furthermore, there is little point for secrecy, since a clued-up and well-organised player will know through which affiliate he signed up, or the affiliate code may be found in the cookies or in the registry, and a little web searching will lead to the affiliate.

 

[RobWin]

Before my casinomeister membership, I joined reputable sites, as well as a rogue from a certain affiliate. They promote many other rogues too, and I quit playing at the reputable ones as well because I did not want this person to profit financially from me.

I've signed up at sites since either through Casinomeister, or affiliates who are members here at CM. I'm not always sure which ones (although most of them I know). I've also signed up directly at times. Affiliate payments are a big part of the bottom line for a casino. 3Dice choose not to have an affiliate program (although there is a friend referral), so I know I joined them directly.

A question for the affiliates though. If I join through your site, and then later join a sister site through offers sent via the casino, am I in your books still? Or should I revisit your site and join the new venue through you?

3Dice actually does have "a type" of affiliate program that a select few members here are affiliates for them, just to name one would be KK, of course besides Bryan.
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[mojo]

I may not be sure on the question here. 'Can a player ask a casino where they signed up from?' I would say yes. In my experience I have seen this many times. I don't know why it would be any other way. Unless I am missing the point entirely.

3Dice actually does have "a type" of affiliate program that a select few members here are affiliates for them, just to name one would be KK, of course besides Bryan.
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My partner is one as well. I was not so lucky.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Businesses don't have privacy rights, unlike people. I would argue that the identity of the affiliate is part of the personal information held about the player, so any casino based in the EU should supply it as part of a data protection request. Furthermore, there is little point for secrecy, since a clued-up and well-organised player will know through which affiliate he signed up, or the affiliate code may be found in the cookies or in the registry, and a little web searching will lead to the affiliate.

In practice, the player ONLY needs (wants?) to know the internet domain through which they signed up, and NOT the name of the individual affiliate running it.

For example, "yes sir, from our records you signed up through casinomeister(dot)com"

They do not have to be told "yes sir, you signed up through Bryan Bailey", which might be personal information were Bryan (for example) NOT letting members of casinomeister know his real name, but only his username.

Once players know the website they signed up through, they can use any "contact us" link they find there to contact the affiliate they signed up through.

It is not something I have kept a record of myself, I didn't see it as relevant at the time, and still don't see that it is relevant in most cases.