Blue Square Affiliate program

[bear58]

Just got this email. Is this similar to what Grand Prive did a few years back?

Notice of Termination
Inbox
x


Graeme Hoyne <[email protected]>
10:57 (10 minutes ago)

to undisclosed recipients
Dear Blue Square Bet Affiliate,

As of 1am Tuesday April 2nd 2013 the Blue Square Bet Brand and customer accounts have been sold to Betfair.

Contracts including those relating to the Blue Square affiliate program were not included in this sale. As a result of this development we are terminating, with immediate effect, all Blue Square Bet affiliate partnerships. In accordance with our terms and conditions please accept this as formal notice of termination.

Any revenues owed from your Blue Square Bet customers will be paid up until April 2nd and final affiliate payments in relation to Blue Square Bet activity will be calculated and paid between the 5th and 15th of this month as per the normal payment run.

We sincerely regret the abruptness of this announcement and any inconvenience that it may cause.

It has been a pleasure working with you and we wish you all the best for the future.

An official press release will be issued in due course, if you have any queries please contact your affiliate manager.

Kind regards,

Blue Square Bet Affiliate Team


Graeme Hoyne

Rank Interactive
A: 6th Floor | 3 Sheldon Sq | London | W2 6ER
T: +44 (0) 20 7984 4925
E: [email protected]

 

[wobble33]

Just got this email. Is this similar to what Grand Prive did a few years back?

Notice of Termination
Inbox
x


Graeme Hoyne <[email protected]>
10:57 (10 minutes ago)

to undisclosed recipients
Dear Blue Square Bet Affiliate,

As of 1am Tuesday April 2nd 2013 the Blue Square Bet Brand and customer accounts have been sold to Betfair.

Contracts including those relating to the Blue Square affiliate program were not included in this sale. As a result of this development we are terminating, with immediate effect, all Blue Square Bet affiliate partnerships. In accordance with our terms and conditions please accept this as formal notice of termination.

Any revenues owed from your Blue Square Bet customers will be paid up until April 2nd and final affiliate payments in relation to Blue Square Bet activity will be calculated and paid between the 5th and 15th of this month as per the normal payment run.

We sincerely regret the abruptness of this announcement and any inconvenience that it may cause.

It has been a pleasure working with you and we wish you all the best for the future.

An official press release will be issued in due course, if you have any queries please contact your affiliate manager.

Kind regards,

Blue Square Bet Affiliate Team


Graeme Hoyne

Rank Interactive
A: 6th Floor | 3 Sheldon Sq | London | W2 6ER
T: +44 (0) 20 7984 4925
E: [email protected]

yes god damn betfair take over blue square all products. i already have a betfair account, so i migrate this blue square one too betfair, and guess what. betfair just locked this new account. cant be bothered with these lot.

yes affiliates treated poor again, i am pleased i am not one. aint this rank org? what happens to gala and mecca too, these lot owned a lot on the net.

 

[The Dude]

How disappointing - and if I read this correctly, very underhanded. And this looks like a real mess in the making.

Again, it seems that affiliates are being tossed to the curb. I'm wondering how this is going to play out with Betfair. Betfair has been in the rogue section for sometime now - I'm curious how they are going to handle this.

It's a bit different from GP - GP closed their affiliate accounts and kept doing business. I'm guessing the Blue Square is shutting down??

 

[The Dude]

I'm removing BlueSquare from the Accred section for the time being until this is hashed out. I hope that Betfair is able to shed some light on what is transpiring here as well. Perhaps their casino rep can give us an idea.

From the CM philosophy section:
https://www.casinomeister.com/about-us/philosophy/

Dealing with Affiliates:
Partners or what?
If casinos have "partner" programs, then affiliates need to be treated as such: business partners. Most everyone is fully aware that business ethics are applied evenly amongst all aspects of a business' endeavors - i.e. its product and its marketing. If a casino treats its players like crap, it will most likely paint its affiliates with the same crap brush. Affiliates should always be wary of how casinos treat their players, and vice versa.

Very disparaging from a casino group that was awarded Best Casino Group for 2012
https://www.casinomeister.com/casino-awards/year-2012/

 

[tomgalanis]

Gala is not part of Rank. I would imagine that Grosvenor and Mecca continue as per usual.

It's a shocker for sports betting affiliates this one without a doubt. We're talking tens of thousands of active accounts written off. It won't do anything to improve Betfair's reputation on the affiliate front

 

[tomgalanis]

I'm removing BlueSquare from the Accred section for the time being until this is hashed out. I hope that Betfair is able to shed some light on what is transpiring here as well. Perhaps their casino rep can give us an idea.

From the CM philosophy section:
https://www.casinomeister.com/about-us/philosophy/



Very disparaging from a casino group that was awarded Best Casino Group for 2012
https://www.casinomeister.com/casino-awards/year-2012/

Essentially Blue Sq no longer exists Bryan, so it makes sense to remove them permanently. I feel for those working on the affiliate side at Rank - they would likely not have had a clue about the deal until very shortly before it was announced. I would imagine the deal has been done at a very senior level without even a consideration for affiliated accounts and the implication of not migrating them.

Interesting point is how this effects 888 - their sports product was powered by Blue Sq...

 

[The Dude]

Essentially Blue Sq no longer exists Bryan, so it makes sense to remove them permanently. I feel for those working on the affiliate side at Rank - they would likely not have had a clue about the deal until very shortly before it was announced. I would imagine the deal has been done at a very senior level without even a consideration for affiliated accounts and the implication of not migrating them.

Interesting point is how this effects 888 - their sports product was powered by Blue Sq...

Seems to underscore the crap attitude that senior management has towards its "partners".

Easy fix though - if Betfair would come forth saying that they would be willing to migrate Bluesquare's affy accounts, that would renew a lot of lost faith.

 

[RikkiGT-R]

Oh dear. I was actually at the sign-up screen for Blue Square just a few nights ago, but changed my mind.
Just as well I did too

One to avoid now I think.

 

[tomgalanis]

Agreed, but it depends how the customer accounts have been migrated. It is entirely possible that the affiliate ID field was omitted in the migration.

The complication is that you would have had a single affiliate account for Blue Sq, Grosvenor and Mecca and the latter two are staying put.

I'm predicting a big mess and I wouldn't fancy being on Betfair's affiliate team at the moment. My opinion is that your opinion of the selling party shouldn't be affected in this - Grosvenor is doing a fantastic job and earned its accreditation and honours last year here.

I know how these big groups work and there would have been no dialogue between those running Grosvenor and those running Blue Sq and the migration to Betfair. In fact, I'd argue this is positive news for those playing at Grosvenor on the forum if anything - Blue Sq was a bit of a dead weight for the group.

 

[The Dude]

So you are saying that it's only Blue Square casino and not Grosvenor or Mecca Bingo.

I'd like to hear if this was a decision made by the seller or buyer to strip the affiliates of their players. I'm hoping that the casino reps can give us more information - and more than just a press release would be nice.

 

[tomgalanis]

Yes - Grosvenor and Mecca are staying with Rank Group (these are their landbased brands in the UK as I'm sure you know). It is only Blue Sq that has been transferred.

I'd imagine that if it did emerge in commercial discussions, it would have been the buyer that stipulated it. Let's see what emerges. Migrations take time - this clearly wasn't a rushed job, but they will have tried to eliminate as many barriers as possible in order to see the deal done.

 

[premiergaming]

Got the same Email today. I have never pushed blue Square on any of my sites. But i feel for other Affiliates. It seems in the affiliate industry that affiliates have safety nets at all. The only thing we can do is post on forums trying to get word. In my opinion there should have being a Rep waiting to reply to all the questions affiliates have before sending an Email like that. So much hard work and all we get is an Email?

I feel for the big sports pushers. Some casinos just dont understand that this is how a lot of people make a living and it isnt just a mess around.

 

[vinylweatherman]

So you are saying that it's only Blue Square casino and not Grosvenor or Mecca Bingo.

I'd like to hear if this was a decision made by the seller or buyer to strip the affiliates of their players. I'm hoping that the casino reps can give us more information - and more than just a press release would be nice.

Even a press release would be nice for affiliates.

They have only 15 days left before their revenue is cut, yet there has been no official announcement, only an email.

Surely this is a breach of contract as the players are still likely to remain active, producing further revenue for the buyer. These players have been brought in by affiliates, and the work has not been fully paid for. In effect, by selling the players on, an asset has been sold that has not been fully paid for.

If this kind of thing is going to become the norm in the affiliate world, the trust in these long term revenue share deals will wane across the board. It would be easy to concoct this type of deal purely as a means to regularly ditch affiliates and keep the players they brought.

Affiliates will have to get together and play hardball with the current programs, insisting on agreed procedures to cover this kind of corporate transaction so that affiliates don't suddenly go to zero revenue more or less overnight.

Many may have put in hours of work over recent months towards promoting the brand, only to find that all along their time had been wasted, and their so called "business partner" knew this all along, but sat back and allowed their affiliates to waste effort and money.

The ditching of affiliates could be a decision of either party, as without the liability, the price for the sale would be higher.

The only real option for affiliates is to punish the party that still exists, one that got a better deal than it should have by having the affiliate liabilities ditched. Many have already punished Betfair, but some stayed faithful to them.

The affiliates now have to play the guessing game of "who's next", especially when they are about to put a great deal of effort into upgrading how they promote a particular brand, which would be a waste of time and money if the following month sees them no longer in existence.

In the regular business world, this kind of thing would not go unchallenged, as the affected partners would be taking court action. Again we see this industry do something that no regular business would dare to do because they exist on the internet, rather than in the real world.

If Ladbrokes were to suddenly sell all their bookies to Coral, they would not be able to just ditch the long term leases on their Ladbrokes shops. They would have to ensure that negotiations took place with the landlords and a settlement agreed, else they would chase what was left of Ladbrokes, along with Coral, for settlement. The only way around it in this scenario would be for Ladbrokes to be wound up and a liquidator appointed, with landlords making their claim there.

Unlike these big landlords, affiliates of the internet side are not usually big enough to take on the corporates, so in general they get away with it. The problem as we have seen is that when a pattern of "getting away with it" starts to become established, we see more and more incidents. It seems to me that after the shock of the Grand prive mass screwing of affiliates, we are seeing more and more schemes designed to freeze out affiliate contracts whilst keeping hold of the players they brought on the promise of "lifetime" revenue deals.

I chose Ladbrokes as the "fall guy" in my scenario because they too jumped on this bandwagon in freezing out all affiliates who worked out of the US, even though they were promoting Ladbrokes in markets outside the US, and nothing in UIGEA makes it illegal to act as a marketer for a legitimate business in markets that allow it, just as nothing in UIGEA makes it illegal for certain casinos to run their support and marketing operations from within the US.

This could turn out to be a bad deal for Betfair in the long term. For starters, they are arbitrarily locking transferred accounts it would seem, hardly a good first impression for the body of players they have just bought. Even those who have not had their accounts locked are going to worry that these new owners do not care as much about them as the old did, and may simply leave of their own accord. This also puts Betfair back in the spotlight yet again, and yet again for negative reasons. It's an odd way of showing affiliates that they can be trusted, especially since last year they tried to convince CM that things had changed and their pit listing should be reviewed and removed.

Even the unaffected brands could face collateral damage as affiliates wonder whether it is worth putting effort into promoting them in case they too are sold off at short notice. We may have been told there are no plans for this, but yesterday there were no plans to sell Blue Sq and ditch affiliates, so can affiliates trust these assurances?

 

[graeme21]

Hi Guys,

My sincere apologies for the news this morning - I literally only found out at the 11th hour with what was going to happen. After working extremely hard on the brand and the program for the last year I obviously hoped that the brand and the affiliate relationships would be maintained, however, this is the decision of the purchaser.

All affiliates will still have the ability to promote Mecca and Grosvenor as normal and those two products will now get a lot more investment moving forward.

Regards,

Graeme

 

[vinylweatherman]

Hi Guys,

My sincere apologies for the news this morning - I literally only found out at the 11th hour with what was going to happen. After working extremely hard on the brand and the program for the last year I obviously hoped that the brand and the affiliate relationships would be maintained, however, this is the decision of the purchaser.

All affiliates will still have the ability to promote Mecca and Grosvenor as normal and those two products will now get a lot more investment moving forward.

Regards,

Graeme

So, the blame lies squarely with Betfair. Affiliates at least know who is responsible for screwing them over, and for those that gave Betfair the benefit of the doubt and didn't join in with the blacklisting consensus, "told you so".

The bigger problem is the breach of trust. This is the SAME people who asked affiliates to trust them over Blue Sq who are now asking affiliates to trust them when they say this will not happen with the Mecca and Grosvenor brands. The problem is that they can just change their minds later on, screw over the affiliates yet again, and there is nothing affiliates can do about it because they only have "their word", but nothing in writing. Since the company has not actually gone bust, and since they didn't transfer the affiliate liabilities with the sale, they are still the party liable when it comes to negotiating compensation for the affiliates affected. Money was received for the sale of the players, yet this is an asset that was not wholly owned, as it had not been fully paid for due to the "life of player" structure of the contracts. Some of the money received for the player sale belongs to the affiliates, and it could be viewed that a lump sum equivalent to the percentage share belongs to the affiliates from the sale proceeds.

For example, if the share was 30%, and the price received per player was £1000, £300 of that should be due to the affiliates as compensation for losing their 30% ongoing revenue share. The sum being based on the fact that the sale valued the player at £1000 over the rest of the lifetime, and without the sale, a player that generated £1000 would generate £300 for the affiliate.

Affiliates also know that when the chips are down, the owners are happy to negotiate away affiliate interests if the purchaser demands it, even though they are hardly going to negotiate away their own interests.

If the chips are ever down at Mecca and Grosvenor in the future, affiliates know what to expect.

 

[Slotster!]

FWIW From a customer perspective... I play @ Blue Sq on and off - a lot over the years. To just get an email today saying you've joined Betfair now, deal with it, kinda makes me feel uneasy. They're offering £100 with 1x playthrough to entice you in.

Anything this out of the blue (sq) and unannounced, especially where financial transactions are concerned, is not good for business.

Account closed.

 

[vinylweatherman]

FWIW From a customer perspective... I play @ Blue Sq on and off - a lot over the years. To just get an email today saying you've joined Betfair now, deal with it, kinda makes me feel uneasy. They're offering £100 with 1x playthrough to entice you in.

Anything this out of the blue (sq) and unannounced, especially where financial transactions are concerned, is not good for business.

Account closed.

I hope you took their £100 off them first.

Maybe this will backfire, as a player that quits as soon as the transfer is announced is of no value, and it also means the affiliates have lost less than they think by not having their accounts transferred over to the Betfair program.

It seems that the player base was the main asset of this deal, and if the whole affair is coming across as "shady" to these players, Betfair may have made an expensive mistake. £100 with 1x WR looks like they are prepared to put money into luring these new players into sticking around, and this may make this offer "easy money" for players, as I can't see Betfair soiling the deal further by making mass confiscations over "spirit of the transfer" if players use this offer to test the waters, wager it 1x and withdraw an average of £95 each. I am sure that players sticking around will get the usual Betfair service, which includes confiscating winnings if the promotions team mess up their maths.

 

[Slotster!]

I hope you took their £100 off them first.

Nah - can't be mithered. You have to play in their 'arcade' or something first - that's more your line of work

Totally agree that affiliates will be losing a lot less than they think - but still not nice to be chopped off in your prime.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Nah - can't be mithered. You have to play in their 'arcade' or something first - that's more your line of work

Totally agree that affiliates will be losing a lot less than they think - but still not nice to be chopped off in your prime.

Not nice to do loads of work, and then told you won't get paid for it even though the employer is going to benefit from said work. If it wasn't for affiliates, there would have been fewer players to sell to Betfair.

Unfortunately, most players have little or no idea that this has happened. As far as they are concerned, they have been transferred to a new site that has just offered them an "easy £100", which will create a good first impression. Only those players who are active in the forums and do their research will see this opening offer for what it is, a bribe. The fact that affiliates spent time and money recruiting them doesn't really bother them so long as Betfair treat them as well as Blue Sq did. If they don't, the players are likely to blame Blue Sq for selling them out, and Betfair for cheating them.

Blue Sq are not really going to feel any negative impact from this, and Betfair have already incurred the wrath of the affiliate community, so may as well screw them over once more. The big problem is when other programs try to bring affiliates on board, the unwritten bond of trust has been damaged, and affiliates are not really being seen as "business partners" by the industry in general, but as "small fry" that can be burned on a whim in the interests of a deal with a true "business partner".

Betfair have proved that their ethics have not changed since the original happy hour promo that triggered their fall from grace, but no-one seriously believed all the bull last year designed to get themselves out of the meister's pit without putting right the original issue that put them there. They are in the pit whether or not they screw affiliates over this deal, so they may as well just get on with it.

One worry for affiliates must be over whether this was a "distress" sale, with Betfair being able to enforce such a negative outcome for affiliates because there was no other choice for the seller but to accept. If this IDS a distress sale, then the prospects for the remaining brands may not be as rosy as portrayed.

In the wake of this, the program should not be surprised if affiliates are wary of putting significant effort into revamping their promotion of Mecca and Grosvenor until the dust has settled, and they believe there to be no immediate risk of a further sale of one or other of these brands to an operator who also insists affiliates get cut out.

Employing affiliates may also become more expensive in future as the risks of the life of player model have seen a dramatic increase in the last few years, with many affiliates facing short payment for work already done through various means, such as retrospective changes of program terms, freezing of revenue from existing players if not enough new players sign up, and even concocted deals designed to steal ongoing revenue from affiliates from currently active players (the Grand Prive incident).

On top of all this, we have some groups using aggressive cross marketing of sister brands that has the effect of freezing out affiliates from referring individual players to more than one skin in a group.

Betfair, for example, seem to be "all over the telly" here in the UK, which means affiliates may find the UK market less productive than they would expect as many players will sign up direct from having seen the ads on the telly. They are also less likely to do their due diligence since it is "on the telly", so must have been vetted by the UK authorities (which is a myth, but many believe it). Ads are like a forum that is moderated after the fact. A dodgy ad is allowed to appear until the ASA gets sufficient complaints and rules the ad must not be shown again. As for the TV companies, they don't vet the ads, they just take the money and allocate a slot. Unless the ad is obviously illegal, such as selling guns, it will be shown once paid for until they are told to pull it by the ASA.

 

[aceking123]

hi , theyve moved my account to no where as i already have a account at grovenor , pity though they was ok never had any problems there.

 

[vinylweatherman]

hi , theyve moved my account to no where as i already have a account at grovenor , pity though they was ok never had any problems there.

Eh

Why does Betfair give a toss whether or not you have an account at Grosvenor after the move

Come to that, how come they even KNOW, the deal was the sale of Blue Sq to Betfair, and ONLY information pertaining to Blue Sq should have been given to Betfair.

This needs further investigation and clarification, as if true, it means we have not been told the whole truth about the deal.

Do you have evidence in writing that this decision was:-

1) Made by Betfair after the move
2) Based on Betfair knowing that you also have an account at Grosvenor.

 

[Simmo!]

Rank announced nearly 3 months ago that they were looking for a buyer for Blue Square so I started reducing exposure at that point to minimise any potential impact but it still comes as a surprise that Betfair would take them on and not honour the affiliate agreement. Although it is in keeping with Betfair's apparent contempt for customers and business partners I guess: first there was "Happy Hour", then Leopardstown, then the announcement they wouldn't pay out for active players sent by affiliates in markets they weren't targeting and now this.

I've switched all my Blue Square links to Grosvenor which is essentially the same product with a bit of Playtech thrown in and Betfair is now mostly gone from my sites too. What will be interesting is if Betfair turn round and offer Blue Square to affiliates again. Hopefully, affiliates will give them the finger like the better ones did with Grand Prive.

So much for "playing it safe" with the brands: Will Hill, Betfair and Ladbrokes' business decisions have quite frankly been a bloody nightmare to try and negotiate over the past couple of years. They've all become a high-risk option to work with IMO.

 

[conker]

Luckily I had only really just started out with BlueSquare and hadn't really sent them much traffic, but I have heard that some affiliates (especially sportsbook ones) have lost hundreds of players. It is nothing short of stealing and it is disgraceful for a company as big as Betfair to be treating business partners with such contempt.

 

[Dave]

Hi all,

At AGD, Vladi brought up a good point (

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

).

In short: Betfair bought the players from Rank, and now Rank should pass along a portion of the amount received to their affiliates.

Betfair is bad news, for sure, but Rank is just as bad if they keep 100% of the money Betfair paid for the players, without sharing any of it with their affiliates.

 

[Jinn]

All affiliates will still have the ability to promote Mecca and Grosvenor as normal and those two products will now get a lot more investment moving forward.

I'm a bit confused Graeme - are you saying that Blue Square Affiliates program will continue to exist, and affiliates will continue to use the Blue Square Affiliates program for promoting Mecca and Grosvenor - even though Blue Square no longer exists?

So will the program name change?

And since you only were told about the sale at the last minute, how could we be convinced the other brands aren't also being sold at any moment and all affiliate revenue lost yet again?

 

[Webzcas]

I'm a bit confused Graeme - are you saying that Blue Square Affiliates program will continue to exist, and affiliates will continue to use the Blue Square Affiliates program for promoting Mecca and Grosvenor - even though Blue Square no longer exists?

So will the program name change?

And since you only were told about the sale at the last minute, how could we be convinced the other brands aren't also being sold at any moment and all affiliate revenue lost yet again?

This is a very good question Graeme and really does need some clarification. As it stands I use my Blue Square Affiliate account for Grosvenor. What is the long term future?

Also what is to stop you doing the same with your other brands?

 

[graeme21]

Hi guys,

The Rank Digital affiliate program continues to exist, it's just there is no Blue Square product there to promote any more. So Mecca and Grosvenor Casinos continue as usual.

The affiliate portal to which you log in, even if it is a Blue Square skin, will continue as normal. That is run by our Netrefer affiliate software so it won't be shut down.

Regards the other brands, Mecca and Grosvenor are not going any where any time soon - Grosvenor Casinos just bought all Gala's land based casino so there will be a big investment in digital also, and Mecca is one, if not, the biggest bingo operator in the UK. Blue Square was losing Rank money for the last few years and not making a profit so they took the decision to sell it. The affiliate team had no say in the matter how the program was handled in the deal so didn't get any input.

I know it was frustrating for affiliates but it was just as much for us who have worked hard on a brand and built close relationships with affiliates, and then have to tell them the news with such abruptness.

Thanks,

Graeme