Hi Lou,
Sorry, I caught a virus and just HAD to take a day off to recover.
We see the standard fee as a win-win solution to all parties involved in the setup process:
BeTheDealer Casino: Even though BeTheDealer is successful, management is reluctant to expand such amounts without knowing they will get it back somehow.
Casino Project: We still have a smaller budget than we wish – advanced technical features require programmers, personal treatment for private label owners requires support staff, and building high quality casinos is expensive. We can’t afford all of them at once. We need to prove management that we are dealing with serious customers who can invest into marketing their product.
Designers: We have a third-party doing the design for us and they have produced the most beautiful designs on the net so far, IMO. They want to get paid up front and we think it’s worth it. The Casino Project website was designed by this team, and the traffic is flowing ever since 
Marketers: They want a high quality product that would convert well. Such products are either available at high prices or “home made” by the webmaster/marketer and eats up the budget. They want something either for free or at least relatively cheap.
This flexible solution allows everyone to see the risk significantly decreased. The marketers pay in advance, become obligated to marketing the product, and get their money back in any case as if it was never given. The designers get paid in advance, provide their high quality design quickly and effectively. Casino Project has proof that they can support their budget and receive more support from BeTheDealer management. The casino management “recruits” a powerful partner by providing an advanced marketing tool without actually taking money from the partner.
I believe many webmasters would go with the “home made” solution and that’s fine indeed. We give out the package for free – it’s easy to understand and simple to use. However, if you plan on marketing a large private label casino that will compete with the top casinos out there (and not just make an improved affiliate), I suggest working with a professional designer and we can give you that in very comfortable conditions.
As for additional tech support fees, this depends on the situation. If you want us to design a newsletter for you, we need to get paid. However, we can supply you with our own newsletters customized to include your co-brand for free. If you need special banner ads that we don’t have, we can design them for you at a certain fee. However, we can also give you the graphic source files of all our banners and you can customize them to your needs.
Hosting and updating is not part of tech support but we inform all private label owners on any updates made to the software, site or service. In fact, we plan to send out a weekly newsletter to all owners starting on late August. It will include software updates, website content and various marketing advice relevant to BeTheDealer private labels.
This is of course an open discussion, so comments and suggestions are also very welcome. After all, we set up this private label service for your marketing needs, to give our partners a better tool, so we also want to hear firsthand what’s on your mind and heart.
Cheers,
Nadav