Revenue share is better.
With a CPA deal, one party always loses. If you refer a decent player to the casino, you’ll get $200 (or whatever the referral fee is), and the casino will make thousands of dollars. In this case, you lose.
If you send bonus hunters or unprofitable “low-rollers” to the casino, the affiliate program loses. And if this happens — if the aff company isn’t making a profit — they’ll probably close your CPA account. Check out the 888.com area on this forum, and you’ll see many examples of this happening.
my assumption that gamblers in general, tend to be impetuous people by nature. They will move from site to site, looking for that Golden Nugget continuously.
In my experience, this isn’t “necessarily” the case — it depends on the casino, and on the type of players you refer. Some casinos have great player retention; other don’t. Some affiliates refer bonus hunters, and others refer serious players and high rollers.
In my case, I would have been a fool to go with any sort of CPA deal…. I’ve made a lot more on revenue share than I would have on CPA. I don’t know exactly how much, but I would guess that (in my case) the revenue share has been over 10 times as profitable as the CPA would have been. (Again, that’s a rough estimate).
what true guarantee do you have, that a vendor will continue to “pay you for the lifetime duration of the participant”
When you sign up with a program, you agree to a set of Terms and Conditions. This is a legal binding contract, and it does mean something. If the aff program tries to break the contract, or if they try to change the T&Cs retroactively, you can take legal action, or at the very least, you can raise a big stink in a public forum.
So… that’s what I think. Revenue share all the way. 