I, for one, am very happy to see this.
As an outsider to the gaming industry investigating profit opportunities, this is the #1 issue that causes me to lose sleep at night. I want to begin a significant promotional effort with several poker/bingo programs but this is the biggest thing holding me back.
I’ve been searching around for a couple of weeks looking for information to allay my fears, but really have found nothing. The “massive frauds” the posted article speaks are some confirmation of my exact suspicions in investigating this industry. I am interested to see the full article.
The previous poster seemed to hit the nail on the head; money + people you don’t know + lack of independent audit.. Seems like a recipe for skimming to me. Skimming might be too watered-down a word for it. To anyone who believes there is a technical hurdle, a 6th grader could modify or code software from the ground up to cheat.
I don’t want to disparage all affiliate program operators, in case there are people out there running programs on the 100% up-and-up. If you have done your own research on poker/bingo programs which accurately reflect conversion rates and profits please let me know as I would love to find ones who track 100%.
To those affiliates who think this is pie-in-the-sky, I have to say you’re being naive. Either that or you’re protecting your own skimming operation.
There is a LOT of money flowing here and I think some sort of an independent auditing system has to be the next step, otherwise these programs are going to stop recruiting new quality affiliates and lose the ones they have. Or conversely, there’s a market opportunity for someone to come out and do this and gain a massive amount of affiliate market share.
I am not a connisseur of the gaming industry, but I have been around the block in the business world, the internet and affiliate marketing… And if this outsider’s opinion has any value to you, I suggest all affiliates begin taking this more seriously and demand better from all affiliate programs. Perhaps an informal union is in order? After all, it’s only your hard-earned money and time…
I will be closely watching as this unfolds as it will affect my promotional plans to a great extent.