I know who the program is that the Professor is referring to and although it is unusual for one program to come to another’s aid, let me say that I would be very, very surprised if they were doing this.
I would be interested to hear how long the affiliates in question have tried removing the casinos in question for. By the sounds of things it is larger affiliates that are concerned, so for arguments sake lets say that each of these affiliates have 1500 players (since day 1). Of these players lets say that 200 are active every month. So even if you stop sending players you will have approximately 200 hardcore players playing every month for at least the next couple of months. Over time the monthly player count will dwindle but with such a large base they will last a considerable time. I would imagine you would have to completely stop sending any players to these casinos for at least 4 to 6 months before you saw a considerable drop in revenues.
Having so many players playing from month to month also means that big wins get ironed out of the total net revenue to some degree, simply because of the large amounts being deposited.
Also casino revenues will generally follow the 80/20 rule whereby 80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the players. Most of the players that an affiliate send from day to day will be the churn – the average couple of hundred bucks a month player. They don’t really make anybody much money so the main changes in revenue come when an affiliate delivers a whale. Whales generally have very long life times as players and generate such large sums of revenue that the day to day churn don’t make much difference to revenue in comparisson. If you only stop sending players for 3 to 4 weeks it is likely that it is only churn players that have not been sent – hence revenues don’t change much.
The affiliate/casino relationship is based on trust and it is up to the affiliate managers to keep the relationship going. Without keeping affiliates informed then completely innocent situations can look suspect. For instance – big winners at the end of the month. Many affiliates complain about this but it DOES happen, not very much I grant you but it does happen from time to time. There is nothing the casino can do to stop this.
Obviously I can only speak for myself and how the team at WagerShare run the affiliate program. However, as I mentioned at the beginning of my post, I would be very surprised if this affiliate program was doing something so short-sighted as it can only be a self-destructive policy in the long-run.
Sorry about the long post – a bit more than 2c worth, better call it a dollar!
Best regards
Tim Whyles