Honouring Affiliate Agreements
Published: Friday, September 02, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
HONOURING AFFILIATE AGREEMENTS
This could be a legal handful....
For some months now a war between certain affiliate marketing organisations and the affiliates they use has been waged behind the scenes, but it is about to become a centre-stage confrontation with legal consequences.
The disagreement revolves around the unilateral decision of certain casino affiliate programs to change their contractual arrangements with their affilate marketers, at the expense of those marketers. No-one has a problem with their right to do so going forward, but it is the retroactive nature of the changes that affiliates are opposing as unfair and prejudicial.
A prominent affiliate, Ted Loh of the Got2Bet portal has been fighting a determined battle to get the casinos to recognise the past contributions by affiliates by doing away with the retroactive aspects of the new rules, and this week this respected portal brought the issue beneath the public spotlight with the following statement:
QUOTE:
I reluctantly announce that I can no longer guarantee or provide assistance to any players playing at the Belle Rock and Fortune Lounge casino groups because of their stubborn refusal to modify recently-implemented conditions which unilaterally, unfairly, and in my opinion illegally, affect the income that I earn from players playing at their casinos.
I am taking this action on behalf of the good of the affiliate community at large in order to protect the viability of the online gambling industry in general, as the affiliates are the ones who point you towards safe, honest casinos, assist you when you have an issue with these casinos, and in general work towards the continuing growth of the industry.
Got2Bet will continue to provide you with high-quality casinos which provide great entertainment value, and treat all players, affiliates, and marketers in a fair manner in order to ensure the continued enjoyment and benefit to everyone from honestly-run casinos.
Because I can no longer provide any assistance for these casinos until such time as they recognize the value that affiliates provide to them and ensure them fair value for their efforts, I would like to ask all players to join me in taking their play elsewhere; all affiliates to cease promoting these casinos which will not offer you a fair deal; all marketers to stop accepting media buys from less-than-reputable operations; all industry observers to lend a hand in maintaining the integrity of the industry in general; and all other casino operations to continue to maintain an honest, level playing field for all parties.
The casinos in the Belle Rock Group are: River Belle, The Gaming Club, Lucky Nugget, Jackpot City, Aces High, Showdown, and Home Casinos. The poker operations are: The Gaming Club, River Belle, and Lucky Nugget Poker Rooms.
The casinos in the Fortune Lounge Group are: 7Sultans, Desert Dollar, Platinum Play, Royal Vegas, Fortune Room, Havana Club, Vegas Palms, Vegas Towers, and Vegas Villa Casinos. Additionally, one other operation, Thunderluck, is also marketed and managed by the same group. The poker operations are: 7Sultans and Royal Vegas Poker Rooms.
The reason these operations are not linked is simple - I do not wish to send traffic to any of these operations, good or bad. There are plenty of other reliable operations that will take good care of you.
This is a very sad day as I separate from friends who I have worked with for years - but in the interest of fairness I feel that it is only right to treat business as business, and friendships as friendships. I am not sure why they have allowed these respective situations to get as far as they have, but it is time to correct the wrongs that have been perpetrated against the people they claim are their partners.
Affiliates - or, for that matter, any players or other observers who wish to contribute towards the legal costs please send me an email at webmaster at got2bet.com or else contact me in one of my regular forums where you typically see me every day. I will have an appropriate account set up for this purpose - funds will not be acknowledged publicly as many of you will wish to remain anonymous - and any remaining funds can either be properly apportioned and returned at your request, or else they will be donated to charity, perhaps one of the tsunami relief organizations listed below.
As litigation is now pending assignment, I will no longer make any further comments about any of these operations until such time as litigation has been completed and decided, or these programs should come to a settlement and make amendments to their programs which are acceptable to all sides.
UNQUOTE
The ball is now squarely in the casinos' court. There will either be a sensible rapprochement that suits all parties....or this could turn into a very contested litigative action.
An old favorite brought back under a new software brand, U.S. friendly.
Use just one account to access poker, sports book and casino gaming.
Excellent number of high-quality games and great support.
Nice sign-up and on-going bonuses with fast cash withdrawal processing.
Good selection of fun games including some new, innovative games on offer.
Huge sign-up bonus with reasonable wagering requirements and an excellent look and feel.
New players receive an insane 200% bonus up to $1000 free on both their first and second deposit.
New players offered up to $888 free in sign up bonuses, a special bonus available for blackjack players as well.
