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If a partner DOESNT make me money I change partners, period. I could care less if an “audit” says they arent stealing from me.
While entertaining, all these conspiracy theories amount to mental masturbation. There aint a damned way to prove any of them.
This may be a somewhat fatalistic attitude 
It may be a practical stance to take especially if you’re happily subsisting on the industry at the moment, but isn’t this really the elephant in the room?
If you’re currently getting everything you want from the gaming industry, I honestly think that’s a good thing, but for anyone who wants more from their invested time, anyone that wants to get paid every cent their hard work entitles them to, much more is needed from affiliate programs.
To begin with, how about real-time stats. Not once a day, not even once an hour. Every dollar that comes in to a gaming concern is tracked by the millisecond, delays should be no more than a few minutes for verified funds to show up on the affiliate platform. Once affiliates can see the real-time ebb and flow of the activity of their account and players they will have more information and be far more receptive to casino concerns and adjustments such as chargebacks and/or large player wins. If everything which is called a win or a chargeback by an affiliate program is such, let’s get the affiliates more involved with the process and life will be easier for everybody. The lack of transparency in affiliate programs clearly is responsible for brooking resentment among webmasters who feel they are in an information vacuum. From what I have seen of this site, CAP is great.. and it’s fantastic for the community and mods here to be able to resolve problems or concerns between webmasters and affiliate programs. But this should be the exception, not the rule. Somebody suggested you get to know your affiliate manager to prevent problems like getting cheated. Not the most appetizing situation to have to make friends with a business partner so you don’t get cheated ‘as much’!
So, real-time stats is a good start. Several people have mentioned that.
As I see it, there are two ways to address the problems that everyone knows are going on in the industry. First, on the corporate side; Full periodic audits of affiliate programs including a forensic software audit (cookie/player tracking) and affiliate payouts.
Secondly, on the affiliate side, doing client-side tests.. But it really should be distributed, especially to avoid problems suggested such as the affil program knowing when you have a friend deposit (close geographical proximity etc). If all this information was being collected and published in a central place, it would begin to put the casinos on notice that they are going to be much more carefully watched. I understand many people do this on their own with their programs and have assembled their own information.. some ppl might feel that is their proprietary info, but when it comes to evaluating the actual HONESTY of the partner you’re signing up to do business with I think it’s something that should be public for everyone to know. The certified partners on the board are a good start but let’s be honest, like the last two posts have said, there’s no way for an affiliate to objectively prove most programs are cheating.
But there are ways to get a real good idea.
Dom, you said something about some kind of an association that does some of this testing. I will have to go back and check it out.
Cheers