Affiliates and dealing with the UK traffic

Casinomeister

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I was wondering how affiliates were dealing with their UK traffic at the moment. Since quite a number of casinos are closing shop to UK players, are affiliates directing traffic to the casinos that will be accepting UK players after 1 October, or what? If so, which casinos are you directing your traffic to?
 
I haven't done much of anything yet except put notices on the ones I know for sure have bailed. It's too uncertain right now who's going or who's staying. I figured I'd wait until the end of the month when things become less vague before doing any geotargeting for UK. Mind you, I don't get a huge lot of traffic right now anyhow and I don't have that many casinos listed so it's easy for me to play catch-up at the last minute.
 
I haven't done much of anything yet except put notices on the ones I know for sure have bailed. It's too uncertain right now who's going or who's staying. I figured I'd wait until the end of the month when things become less vague before doing any geotargeting for UK. Mind you, I don't get a huge lot of traffic right now anyhow and I don't have that many casinos listed so it's easy for me to play catch-up at the last minute.

Ditto :thumbsup:
 
I haven't done much of anything yet except put notices on the ones I know for sure have bailed. It's too uncertain right now who's going or who's staying. I figured I'd wait until the end of the month when things become less vague before doing any geotargeting for UK. Mind you, I don't get a huge lot of traffic right now anyhow and I don't have that many casinos listed so it's easy for me to play catch-up at the last minute.

Im in the same spot, Will not take me a few minutes to sort any new links, But I take its not going to be easy for big sites, All this last minute thing is a bit of a nightmare low,

You would of thought abit of correspondence would not go a miss, I did get a strange email of aff manger stating they can only see 1 of there bingo sites whitch is a bit strange as there next to each other? Than a couple of days later told that there closing to U.K

Also received this email,

We're happy to announce that Joy of Bingo platform is now migrated into 888 Affiliate's platform and all accounts and players are now under 888 Affiliate's platform.

Your traffic was simply moved to your new or existing 888's account and your deals are already set under your account. You can use your new serials to promote Joy of Bingo brands, as they are already updated with your previous commissions.

For your convenience the old Joy of Bingo links will still be valid until the 31st of October, please make sure to change your links before that date.

An email with explanations regarding the process has already been set to you, please go through our emails and contact your account manager for further questions!


I not sure what the joy of bingo is? will have to look up, So much going on
 
My main market is UK, but because of the lack of decent information from the operators I haven't changed much yet on the website. Afaik currently Casino UK has become UK only and GoWild stopped accepting UK players. Hopefully it all becomes clear very soon, so I can decide which to promote or not. Rumors are that Fortune Affiliates and Starpartner will exit the UK market. Will keep a close eye on it.
 
For my solely-UK centric sites we're probably going to only list the UK licensed brands, although it's a bit of a waiting game to see exactly who that's going to be come October 1st. I do have a rough idea of who's in and who's out that I work with though so shouldn't be too bad.

On sites that aren't specifically aimed at the UK it'll probably be a case of either geotargetting to only show UK licensed brands to UK traffic and/or listing it as a variable (eg: No UK Allowed / No License / UK License).

Oh for an EU-wide licensing system, eh!
 
My main market is UK, but because of the lack of decent information from the operators I haven't changed much yet on the website. Afaik currently Casino UK has become UK only and GoWild stopped accepting UK players. Hopefully it all becomes clear very soon, so I can decide which to promote or not. Rumors are that Fortune Affiliates and Starpartner will exit the UK market. Will keep a close eye on it.

It's amazing the lack of response from Affiliate programs, I expect at least an email from all of them either assuring me they will continue operating in the UK or be pulling out.
 
I've heard that All British Affiliates applied for a license and All British continues to focus on collaboration with partners instead of offline marketing within a UK regulated market.
Contact me to discuss a deal when you are ready!
 
My main market is UK, but because of the lack of decent information from the operators I haven't changed much yet on the website. Afaik currently Casino UK has become UK only and GoWild stopped accepting UK players. Hopefully it all becomes clear very soon, so I can decide which to promote or not. Rumors are that Fortune Affiliates and Starpartner will exit the UK market. Will keep a close eye on it.

Rumour is correct again.

Star Partners sent an email to affiliates yesterday, and as I was seeking clarification from their rep (as a player), I got phoned by VIP. Casino UK is, after all, going to exit the UK, TOMORROW!! The earlier migration was something of a "red herring", catching players and affiliates off guard. Players from Casino UK are being migrated to Roxy Palace. This will happen tomorrow when they log in. Affiliates have been told to remove their Casino UK banners on the same date, so presumably they will no longer track the traffic through a redirect to Roxy Palace. May as well just stick a Roxy Palace banner in place of Casino UK.

It's possible that the new gambling act could affect the way affiliates based in the UK market to UK players.

The real problem is the lack of information being given out. If affiliates don't act, it can leave them with too little time to make the necessary changes, but if they try to act early on rumour and incomplete information, they may waste their efforts.

Maybe the best course of action is to monitor the situation on a daily basis, and do some background preparation based on what seems the most probable changes, and then there is less work to do if the change is formally announced with the usual 2 to -1 days notice.

The UKGC has a public register which can be downloaded in full and manipulated in Excel. It is beginning to fill up with information, and I had a look yesterday and saw some licence applications from sites that have yet to announce their intentions. It's the first time I have seen this UKGC register "ahead of the game". The downside is that it's still playing catch-up with the flood of applications coming in, and there is also an option for applicants to not appear on this register during the process, which could give the false impression that they are leaving the UK.

It is only from Oct 1st that the new rules come into force, and when it should be relatively easy to check the status of any site being promoted. Any site that didn't apply before today has left it too late for a continuation licence, so they will have no choice but to close to UK players on Sept 30th, and remain closed to the UK until such time as they are granted a UK licence. I expect that sites that intended to stay applied by midnight yesterday, as the process from now is much harder without an interim continuation scheme being available. New UK licence applications will probably come from new operations from now on.

The large migration from Digimedia to Betway still has the status of "rumour" as there has been no formal announcement, and it relies on Betway getting a UK licence. Given the sudden change of heart at casino UK, it's possible that other operators will pull out at the last minute. As a player, I am still getting promotional mailers from ex Jackpot Factory and Fortune Lounge as though nothing has changed.
 
For my solely-UK centric sites we're probably going to only list the UK licensed brands, although it's a bit of a waiting game to see exactly who that's going to be come October 1st. I do have a rough idea of who's in and who's out that I work with though so shouldn't be too bad. On sites that aren't specifically aimed at the UK it'll probably be a case of either geotargetting to only show UK licensed brands to UK traffic and/or listing it as a variable (eg: No UK Allowed / No License / UK License). Oh for an EU-wide licensing system, eh!

Since over 90% of my traffic is from the UK, I'm considering to drop all non-UK programs.

It's amazing the lack of response from Affiliate programs, I expect at least an email from all of them either assuring me they will continue operating in the UK or be pulling out.

Indeed, extremely bad communications, although I have the impression that several the aff.programs don't know it themselves either.
 
I think the main problem for affiliates is to know which casinos to stop directing UK traffic to. If I was a player that had just signed up, and then the next day told that I was supposed to sign up elsewhere, or that my account was being transferred, I would be put off. I would probably bail from the casino since I wouldn't know whether or not I should trust a company that didn't have the foresight to get a UK license.

Another problem for affiliates is to ensure that the casinos that no longer take UK players are not redirecting the affiliate's traffic to other brands without the consent of the affiliate. We saw this with Red Flush last year. I so happened to click a Red Flush link from a US IP address and I was redirected to Sunset Slots. This brand was not even in the Accredited section and it would have led US players to believe that Sunset Slots had gone through our screening process. This was not cool. :mad:

Brightshare was also redirecting traffic as well - to Jackpot Capital.
 
I think the main problem for affiliates is to know which casinos to stop directing UK traffic to.
Exactly!
I'm not clever enough to do any sort of "geo targeting" so I just have to literally say "no UK players" next to the casino... IF I know that to be the case.
But it's just an enormous mess at the moment, which I haven't got the time or inclination to thoroughly investigate, so I'm just having to leave it to my potential players to find out for themselves. :(

KK
 
Here is a notice from Pinnacle:
Due to changes to British gambling licensing regulations, Pinnacle Sports will, after September 30th 2014, be unable to offer our services in Great Britain.
Any existing British betting accounts that affiliates have tagged to their accounts will be closed and removed.
 
Right now, I'm not doing anything. The only brand I really push that I know for certain have pulled out of the UK is Tropezia but until it's clear who is doing what, I'm sticking rather than twisting.

I do geo-target so it shouldn't be too hard for me to switch stuff around on my main sites but I only want to do it once so I'm going to wait and see for the moment.
 

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