Ladbrokes stealing (even more) money from their affiliates

Dave

Dormant Account
webmeister
Joined
Jul 19, 2005
Location
North America
Hi everyone,

Just a heads up -- Ladbrokes has decided to steal money from their U.S. based affiliates on October 31st. Here is the email they sent to their U.S. affiliates:

Dear affiliate,

We write with reference to Score, the Ladbrokes and LBapuestas Affiliate Programme in which you are currently participating.

We regret to inform you that Ladbrokes and LBapuestas have taken the business decision to cease commercial partnerships with all of our affiliates based in the USA.

In accordance with Clause 12.6 of our terms and conditions (a copy of which can be found by clicking on the following link xhttp://www.score-affiliates.com, we hereby provide you with written notice that we are terminating our contract with you with effect from 23:59 on 31 October 2012.

Of course, all commissions due and payable to you in respect of the period 1 October 2012 to 31 October 2012 (if any) will be paid in full in accordance with the terms of our contract with you. This is in addition to all other outstanding commissions (if any) due and payable by us to you in accordance with the terms of our contract. Please do so by emailing affiliatepayments@ladbrokes.co.uk with your payment details together with a pdf document on your company letterhead with the required authorised signatory on the account.

Please be aware that with effect from 23:59 on 31 October 2012 the licence granted to you pursuant to Clause 7.1 of our terms and conditions to display the relevant Ladbrokes and LBapuestas brand features and related content will terminate. Therefore we kindly request that you remove and refrain from using all Ladbrokes and LBapuestas branding (including, but not limited to, all of our logos, trade marks and trade names) and any other Ladbrokes and LBapuestas content from your website at all times after this date. Please also note that access from your website to our score platform will be blocked by us with effect from 23:59 on 31 October 2012 and therefore we also request that you remove all links on your website to the score platform with effect from this date.

Should you have any queries, please contact affiliatequeries@ladbrokes.co.uk. We would like to thank you for your efforts to date and we look forward to working with you again in the future where business circumstances permit.

Kind regards,

Score Affiliates Team

Essentially, if you built up a player base with Ladbrokes, and if you happen to live in the USA, Ladbrokes intends to steal your entire player base at the end of this month without paying any sort of lump sum compensation whatsoever. If you counted on the residual income to put food on the table, too bad. No soup for you!

This latest move comes only a few months after another unsavory move by Ladbrokes, when they retroactively forced lower commission rates on all of their affiliates. Apparently that reduction wasn't enough to satisfy them, since they now intend to steal the remaining residual income on the 31st.

IMO, all affiliates should be very concerned about this. This month, U.S. affiliates are the victims of Ladbrokes' greed, but next month it could be another country. I would advise any affiliate reading this to stop promoting Ladbrokes immediately, since they are very comfortable using Clause 12.6 in the T&Cs to shed affiliates (and therefore steal) when it suits them.

Additional discussions here:

xhttp://www.affiliateguarddog.com/forums/money-grab-ladbrokes-dumps-all-u-s-affiliates-steals-future-residual-income-t5615.html
xhttp://www.gpwa.org/forum/ladbrokes-boot-us-affiliates-207661.html
xhttp://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/bb/48224-score-affiliates-screws-affiliates.html
xhttp://www.pokeraffiliatelistings.com/forums/general-poker-affiliate-forum/24603-labrokes-cuts-off-us-affiliates.html
 
Ladbrokes is an ethically challenged casino and reviewed here at Casinomeister.
Ladbrokes is an ethically challenged Online Casino.
Click here to read our Negative Review of  Rogue Casino Ladbrokes
Ladbrokes reply: Warning: Ladbrokes stealing (even more) money from their affiliates

Hello everyone,

Thank you for the feedback on this, of course, we’re not happy about the negative impact this decision has on our ongoing affiliate relationships and we have been trying to make this a smooth as possible for all our active affiliates. We would like to again express our sincere apologies for this undesirable change.
Ladbrokes does not accept US players and although our USA based affiliates were promoting us to a non-US customer base, we still had to cut our ties. As a public limited company, we are constantly monitoring risks to our current and future business. In the light of this, working with affiliates directly or indirectly associated with the USA is regrettably perceived as high risk for our future business in a potentially regulated US market.

All other affiliates remained unaffected and it’s business as usual.

Although this only affects a fairly small amount of Score Affiliates, we’re still mindful about the impact it has, should our decision have directly impacted you and you have not yet made contact with us, please contact us on affiliatequeries@ladbrokes.co.uk and we will be happy to discuss.

Regards,
Liva

Score Affiliates Team
by
Ladbrokes
 
Ladbrokes does not accept US players and although our USA based affiliates were promoting us to a non-US customer base, we still had to cut our ties.

This begs the question Why? They are not doing anything illegal, they just happen to live in a country where laws make it very difficult for players to gamble online.

And why are you not paying affiliate earnings on existing players to US based affiliates? That is blatent stealing and makes the whole bwin retroactive term change thing a few years ago look like nothing.

I see this is your first post, so I will give you a chance to respond and build up your post count a little.
 
...although our USA based affiliates were promoting us to a non-US customer base, we still had to cut our ties.

Specifically, why?

What is the specific legal reason why Ladbrokes believes this step needs to be taken? Is there an existing law on the books that compels you to sever ties with U.S. based companies? (Yes or no.)

Also, why isn't Ladbrokes offering to buy out the affiliate accounts for a reasonable lump sum payment? As it stands, Ladbrokes plans to simply steal all of the residual income tomorow night without any sort of compensation. Unacceptable. The company should buy out the affiliate accounts or do something to help mitigate the losses some affiliates will face.

A company that steals from its affiliates is NOT one to be trusted. Players beware. This is Grand Prive all over again, and Bryan summed up that fiasco very well here. Specifically:

Casinomeister said:
Baaaad casino practice.

Trust has been shattered. The casino group will continue to profit while tossing hundreds if not thousands of webmasters into the cold. If they are willing to do this with their business partners, how do you think they plan on treating their players?

Unless Ladbrokes steps up and resolves this in a more satisfactory manner, players would be wise to avoid Ladbrokes at all costs.
 
I agree that Ladbrokes needs to answer the questions listed. A lump sum payment would be expected in this type of situation. It is EXTREMELY unethical to blatantly steal as they are doing and certainly reminds me of the Grand Prive example (and even the BWin/BeWinners more recent fiasco).

These affiliates have devoted a great deal of time and effort to help your casino 'exist' and profit. To steal from them for no purpose and without adequate explanation is abhorrent for a 'public' company (as you so often love to state). Do the board members realize what is going on with Score affiliates? Do they approve of such unethical behavior? If so... then that means the casinos are CERTAINLY not a safe place for players.

I would love to hear further explanations from Score Affiliates, Ladbrokes, and their board.
 
Sincere apologies don't pay our bills or change the fact that your stealing from your marketing partners. You need to buy out our player database we sent you over the years plain and simple! Just because we live in the states means nothing! We also have our site hosted in the UK- We have a .co.uk brand, we pay our taxes on earnings generated by your company so we are considered marketing partners plan and simple!

We are making a rogue operator page you will be blacklisted and players will be warned they could be next!! If anyone would like to join our blacklisted pages please pm me asap!

If your referring to the future of US gaming and Ladbrokes joining that country's landbased casinos then remember your burning your bridges with the same affiliates you will need in the future!!
We are established marketers & we know how to reach a targeted area since we have been Geo targeting the UK from the US since 2006, I think we can make sure to let every player of your future market know your nothing but thieves!
 
I just finished putting up an article about Ladbrokes here: xhttp://www.newslotgames.com/rogue-online-casinos/ladbrokes.asp

Send me the URL when yours is ready and I will add it to my page.
 
Here's a hypothetical question:

What if Ladbrokes transferred the existing player-base of one (or more) of their USA Affiliates to someone based outside the USA (e.g. an existing affiliate in the UK), so there would no longer be any payments or links to the USA.
Then the UK Affiliate could forward the income to the USA Affiliate.

Would that be considered money laundering?

KK
 
Then the UK Affiliate could forward the income to the USA Affiliate.

Would that be considered money laundering?

Probably - but even if it didn't that would invariably lead to other issues.

The simple and ethical solution would be for Ladbrokes to buy out the players, although I personally just don't get why they are ditching US affiliates. Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. All I can think is whoever made this decision either a) knows something we don't, b) has made a panic judgement or c) doesn't really understand the US situation. Whichever it is, the way it's been implemented doesn't exactly inspire brand confidence.
 
Removed "Warning" from the thread title, too easily confused with an official Casinomeister Warning.
 
With all due respect I sincerely hope there will be an 'official' warning or something from Meister about this thievery.
This is almost the same type of thing that happened with C-Planet which was totally unacceptable as well.
 
I am hoping for an official statement from Bryan soon as well.

Ladbrokes doesn't appear to be backing down -- the mass robbery went ahead as planned -- and they completely ignored the followup questions posed to them earlier in this thread (and elsewhere).

This is not how a reputable casino should act.
 
What if the US affiliate moved to another country ,will they get their account back?These are options they should have given their affiliates.Not everyone will be interested but probably a few who make big money would consider it...
 
This doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I don't understand if it has to do with being an American or an American based business. There is a simple solution to all of this: US based affiliates could partner with UK based affiliates - or even me for example. :p

Talk about throwin' out the baby with the bath water. Just shutting off US affiliate accounts is unacceptable. There ought to be some sort of agreed upon settlement. After all - it's a partnership, right?
 
I've moved this to a the "Complaints" section so that the entire membership may comment on this - not only affiliates.
 
If Ladbrokes can do this to affiliates, they could do the exact thing with players. I've read at
You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.
that an affiliate been received a 6 month average compensation offer from Ladbrokes.

This means that ALL the remaining money is kept by Ladbrokes. :mad:

I don't know where in the standards for accredited casinos this is mentioned, maybe it isn't mentioned at all? However, it hurts my eyes a bit to see Ladbrokes at the accredited section here at CM when they are trying to steal like this. I also understand that this puts Casinomeister in an uneasy situation. They just returned to the accredited section, and now this.
 
I'm literally NEW to the Affiliate Business - A HUGE amateur beginner... :p; however, A lot of work goes into this type of business. It's very unfair for Ladbrokes to 'steal' the bread and butter from people who have worked hard to direct that traffic to them. Its unethical and roguish IMPO.

I cannot understand how they will not even offer compensation to those affiliates. Many of the players they brought in will still contribute to Ladbrokes revenue for many years to come.

It would be interesting to see how many affiliates are affected from the US and what their players contribute on average to Ladbrokes on a monthly basis. This would give us a clear idea of how much they intend to 'pocket' without feeling guilty about it... If they get away with this, what stops other places from following suite... not because of legislation, but because of greed?

Nate
 
This doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I don't understand if it has to do with being an American or an American based business. There is a simple solution to all of this: US based affiliates could partner with UK based affiliates - or even me for example. :p

Talk about throwin' out the baby with the bath water. Just shutting off US affiliate accounts is unacceptable. There ought to be some sort of agreed upon settlement. After all - it's a partnership, right?

In the other forum linked to, one affiliate simply changed his affiliate arrangements so that the payments went to his non US company rather than his US based one. For him, a very simple solution indeed.

However, I suspect some underhanded intent by Ladbrokes. They seem to have given only 2 weeks notice, nowhere near enough time for affected affiliates to explore their options, such as your suggestion of partnering with non US affiliates, or even selling on the Ladbrokes portion of their business to a non US entity. It seems the short notice was intended to scupper the working out of such deals, as affiliates only had 2 weeks to put their Ladbrokes accounts up for sale, a non-US affiliate to buy, and the transfer to take place. From the 1st November, US affiliates can't even change their accounts to specify a non-US entity, as all access has been blocked.

US affiliates were doing nothing different to any other US based company that does marketing work on behalf of casinos to non-US players. Many of the snail mail marketing for casinos has been posted from the US, even though it is for casinos that don't always accept US players.

How is this different to what Grand prive did. Grand Prive only did one thing different, they lied by pretending the casinos were closing down at the same time, which meant the players would not be generating any further revenue in any case.

Ladbrokes has benefited from the expertise of the US affiliate, many of whom have been around far longer than non-US affiliates. They also adapted to change by targetting non US players for those brands that no longer accepted US ones.

The principle seems to be that because of UIGEA, Ladbrokes cannot take ANY kind of service whatsoever from a US based company. The same principle is bound to affect many other countries. If Ladbrokes hasn't got a Spanish license, they could argue that they have to ditch all Spanish affiliates.

Ladbrokes won't simply vanish either, angry affiliates will blacklist them on their sites, and guess who will be seeing this the most, the non-US target market of these affiliates!

One post even suggests that your own company will be affected as it is based in the US, but it seems you have thought of this already, and do not use a US registered company when it comes to your affiliate deals.

An affiliate with money to invest could have made a killing by offering to buy out US affiliates and having a ready made and pretty large Ladbrokes player base right from the start.

I suspect Ladbrokes didn't want all their affiliates working out such deals, as it would save them no money. By shutting down those accounts that couldn't strike a deal in 2 weeks, they have saved themselves the money that would have carried on going out to affiliates.


Like Grand Prive, players will probably not notice, and even when they see the blacklistings, they will consider their own experience with Ladbrokes to be a better indicator.

One other observation made was that Ladbrokes would not have got away with this if "affiliates stuck together like they used to".
 
Nate, maphesto, and vinylweatherman -- great posts.

Reputable casinos don't steal from their business partners, and in my opinion, Ladbrokes belongs in the rogue pit with Grand Prive.
 
I'm still waiting for further comments from Ladbrokes since what has already been published just won't do.

I've also updated Casinomeister's Philosophy page to cover situations like this:
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.
 
I have never been an affiliate so I know nothing of the legal bindings (if they exist), is there any form of a legally binding contract between affiliates and casino`s?. if not, Ladbroke`s could pave the way for the more unscrupulous casino`s out there to follow suit, if however there are legal contracts in force then surely they are in breach of them?.
 
I have never been an affiliate so I know nothing of the legal bindings (if they exist), is there any form of a legally binding contract between affiliates and casino`s?. if not, Ladbroke`s could pave the way for the more unscrupulous casino`s out there to follow suit, if however there are legal contracts in force then surely they are in breach of them?.
I'm pretty sure that NO affiliate programs enter into legally binding contracts with their affiliates.
And I'm also pretty sure all the T&cs have a clause allowing the Program (casino) to terminate the contract with their affiliates at any time for any reason.
(But I could be wrong about either or both of those things!)

KK
 
I'm pretty sure that NO affiliate programs enter into legally binding contracts with their affiliates.
And I'm also pretty sure all the T&cs have a clause allowing the Program (casino) to terminate the contract with their affiliates at any time for any reason.
(But I could be wrong about either or both of those things!)

KK

I find that hard to believe that you guys don`t cover your backs with legally binding contracts, I would imagine there to be quite a lot of money involved here :confused:.
 
I'm pretty sure that NO affiliate programs enter into legally binding contracts with their affiliates.
And I'm also pretty sure all the T&cs have a clause allowing the Program (casino) to terminate the contract with their affiliates at any time for any reason.
(But I could be wrong about either or both of those things!)

KK


They can terminate the contract at any time.

there not a legally binding contract in place but there is certain things that Affiliates cannot do that can cause alot of Sh*t which the Casino would take very Seriasly.
 

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