Firstly, I very much agree with BBS on the Micro point. But i would suspect their licences insist on the casino proving they have sufficient backing before the licence is granted anyway. I think proportionately over time, we’ll see less MG’s (and maybe Cryptos) go under than other licensors, despite the higher costs involved.
But i think we may be about to see something we’ve all seen before and these recent announcements really ought to be taken as a wake-up call. Remember, the main problem with affiliation is that the foundation of our business is in other people’s hands and that is a very fragile platform. Every year is a bonus! In this area of business, too many other people can effectively decide whether you survive. We rely on the casinos running affiliate programs, we rely on Google and Yahoo to get us traffic, we rely on government policies to allow players to play. Of course these are largely reciprocated, but it doesnt alter the fact that someone elses decision can dramatically affect your income.
Let’s bear in mind this industry is still relatively young and arguably in it’s formative years. I remember when i started my Web Dev company 10 years ago, lots of people entered the market – to saturation point – then, come the end of the Dot Com boom, the whole market consolidated and only the strongest survived. We survived (just!) but i learnt two major lessons from that: (1) don’t allow one or two clients to dominate your income streams and (2) nothing lasts forever. I think at some point (possibly soon) we are likely to see a similar consolidation in the Online Gambling industry – in fact, for me, these sound the first warning bells.
If I’m right, then i think as affiliates we have to foresee the warning signs as we will rapidly feel the effect as the casinos come out consolidating. What you have to remember is that if an industry makes money, everyone wants a slice, it becomes harder to compete and the weaker ones fall, leaving the stronger more dedicated businesses with their sh*t together in place. You can apply this to casinos, poker rooms and bingo sites, but also to us affiliates.
Thats why i think Dom is right with the eggs/basket thing. This whole VPL/F.A/MM excercise is actually a bloody good lessson. While there is no harm (other than risking whats just happend) in having several independent and non-combined casinos from one group on your sites, you need to avoid relying on it being a majority share of your income. Similarly however you want to avoid having casinos that may not make it through the boom. These will be the casinos who treat both their affiliates and more importantly, their players, right.
If people here don’t already then they need to join Spear, Webzcas, me, Dom and several others on the Casinomeister boards constantly monitoring casino reputations. I’ve come across a few great sounding casinos who seem to treat their players very well that i’d bearly even looked at until recently and these are the casinos where i will now start to be spreading my load so to speak. Conversely i’ve seen issues at others that I’ve then removed or demoted on my sites.
Also, I’m going to start replacing one or two of the casinos in groups that perform well. Or at least start to de-prioritise them. That may sound silly, but better to start diversifying and putting a safety net under my business now rather than when it’s too late. I’m relatively well-placed in that no one “group” accounts for more than 40% of my income, but even that is a big chunk. I think 25-30% is the maximum that I want to have that could be affected by one “outside” policy decision like we’ve just seen. I could bounce back from that. I’m also going to re-examine the casinos I promote a bit and see how “strong” they are should any bubbles burst. Its obvious from the recent policy changes that some companies are struggling to stay afloat so now’s a good time.
Anyway…breakfast calls 
Cheers
Simmo!