Rogue Practices Among Poker Affiliates Condemmed

Rogue Practices Among Poker Affiliates Condemmed
by Brian Cullingworth, InfoPowa News
19 July, 2005

One of the more interesting exchanges on the major fora recently has concerned the temptations that the practice of rakeback in the poker sector can excite, and some of the tricks used to exploit this marketing incentive by unscrupulous poker affiliates.

“Rakeback” is where an affiliate “splits” the commission he or she receives from a poker room with the players he or she recruits.

One experienced webmaster who works closely with more than 35 poker sector affiliate marketers revealed there are a number of ways in which affiliates exploit the system. “Not everyone agrees with rakeback,” he wrote. “It is a recent affiliate concept that has exploded but has not always been met with open arms by traditional marketers due to the potential for abuse by unscrupulous marketers”

Criminal element introduced

A senior affiliate agreed with him, pointing out that rakeback greed has unfortunately created a fraudulent and unethical ethos among some affiliates.

“Players are being herded into rakeback agreements they do not need because they never deposit enough to make it worthwhile. Promises are made that are not kept. Then the affiliate disappears when it’s time to pay up, only to reappear in some other guise.

“One thing that is very disturbing is that a minority of rogue affiliates spam poker room chat or forum facilities and try to poach players that have been signed up by other affiliates, teaching them how to create false identities and open multiple accounts and putting them under their own code. Some rakeback affiliates even hire players to spam rooms for them!”

One solution to the spamming problem might be a rule that players should make a real money deposit before being given chat priveleges at any real money table.

Disastrous consequences and unkept promises

Educating newbie players on how to open fraudulent multiple accounts can have severe consequences for both the player and the industry as a whole. When the player realises rakeback isn’t really rewarding because she or he doesn’t wager high enough amounts, some try to exploit the standard bonusing offered by online casinos, using illegal multiple account tactics. When discovered, this almost certainly results in disqualification of winnings and bonuses by the casino.

This can be a disastrous event for the player. In a recent incident a player’s significant reward of a sponsored buy-in and free trip to the WSOP was lost when it transpired that he had opened some 17 accounts to get at rakeback rewards.

The number one rogue issue with poker affiliates seems to be promising rakebacks in order to sign up players, only to disappear or otherwise renege on payment. This is apparently a frequent problem, perpetrated by a number of integrity-challenged affiliates.

Affiliates meet players in forums and often proposition them via Private Messaging. The average player has no easy means of knowing if these dishonest individuals are legit. The players sign up on the promise of the rakeback “bonus” from the affiliate, and suffer disillusionment and anger when agreements are not honoured.

Affiliates running off with the money they earn from poker rooms without paying their players is fortunately less of an issue than it was in the past, because many poker rooms have started to pay the players share of the rakeback automatically to the player’s account. And as the practice of rakeback has gathered momentum, it has become more mainstream and hence better used by legitimate and honest rakeback affiliates.

However, there are still incidents where a small population of rogue rakeback affiliates disappear leaving unpaid players, only to resurrect under new emails and new domains, and start all over again with a clear criminal intent. One affiliate group launched in April and already has had 4 websites and 5 email addresses.

Switching skins and plagiarising websites

Some affiliates even tempt players to switch “skins” in order to steal them from another affiliate. For example a player registers on Site A and then finds or is offered and signs up for an affiliate bonus code for Site B (a skin for site A) To some affiliates this player has been poached, and poker room managements are not usually prepared to be drawn in to squabbles of this nature between affiliates because players are not supposed to have accounts on multiple skins.

Another frequent poker affiliate bad practice is the website rip-off or site-scraping. This is not confined to the poker sector of course, but it is nevertheless plagiarism which should be condemned.

The webmasters at poker portal Rake Rebate Review, and the popular casino forum and directory Casinomeister are among many established and successful webmasters who report numerous attempts to copy their website designs and content at various times.

One last sleazy business practice is that of bad-mouthing the competition – especially if it is established and successful.

There are a number of affiliates who instead of promoting their own services and poker rooms in a professional way feel the need to trash other affiliates, and spend an inordinate amount of unproductive time doing so.

When a professional affiliate posts in the ad or commercial announcement section of leading portals they are at times met with personal attacks from shady affiliates trying to discredit them.

“Significant money can be made in the poker sector by a professional affiliate who is honest and works hard,” says one affiliate. “But the practice of rakeback, added to greed and even professional envy has made things extremely competitive and has unfortunately introduced sub-standard conduct in some quarters.”

The solution may lie in the hands of both affiliates and the managers of affiliate programs that contract with them. By publicly condemning bad practice and focusing on high standards of conduct and service themselves, affiliates can create a culture of professionalism despite the lack of formally constituted professional associations. And program managers who are apprised of bad conduct can do their bit by pulling up those who are guilty of it.