Simon, add me to the list that doesn’t like this change. Whilst I acknowledge the cost in paying out small amounts, I don’t think raising the minimum payout is a solution your accounting team would like. It just means lots of small balances still hanging around and a liability appearing in you balance sheet that you may never clear.
There must be some better way of clearing these small amounts when the affiliate has gone awol and you can’t get the cheque presented. Maybe something along the lines of if the amount is less than $50 and the cheque is returned, you email the affiliate and they have a month (or some other timeframe) to provide a new method of payment or physical address. If no response then they forfeit those earnings, HOWEVER, they are not terminated. This way the liability is cleared from your books. Then if one of their old players comes back and starts earning the sportsbook/casino and the affiliate a decent amount then they still benefit.
Hopefully the above gets over the problem of clearing the small amounts and still means affiliates have ‘players for life’. I think most of us understand we will probably be the exceptions however none of us like this hanging over our heads. We send the visitors to your casinos/sportsbooks and the work to convert them is up to you. None of us like our future income being totally dependent on how well you convert them.