I agree regarding the banners. I dont like them either. In fact I ignore them and like you, try not to have too many. Maybe have them in strategic places. It would be intereting to know whether conversions come from clicking on text links from recommendations or clicking on banners. I know theres ways to track this but it’s so tedious…
I remember when I was working for a newspaper website that banners and tiles have very poor click rates, but it seems to be different with gambling. Maybe we should re-focus this to really badly designed sites that makes tons of money! Maybe we could learn something!! lol