Hi there,
Well I have got the feeling that I could bring some more comments to the topic, so there it is:
1) No
2) No
3) No
4) Yes
Well, allow me to express my thinking about that topic:
1) My opinion is that each casino has simply some amount of overturn ready to be paid to affiliates or to cover direct marketing expenses. This is a top management decision and I would estimate that this “pile” of money can be pretty the same in all casinos as they run pretty same business, I am not taking into the account someone minimizing his own profit and taking high risk to be quickly screwed out of business if there are coming some external “difficulty” factors (legislation changes or hassle with credit card processing, just to name some examples). Then the affiliate manager has to use this same “pile” of money in the most effective manner, to manage the right affiliate marketing with this “the same” percentage in other words. Then majority of them prefers to do NOT carry negative balance, because it could not keep to motivate the affiliate to bring players next month, because he/she can get the felling that the negative balance must be worked out at first. Then affiliate has to pay monthly bills as I or somebody other also does, so the casinos are trying to decrease the risk of win/loss fluctuation impact on affiliate earnings so that they receive more steady income flow. I would logically estimates that those casino which DOES carry negative balance could bring a little bit more money to affiliates in the longer run, it is all about the risk share.
2) No, and according to my opinion it would be a pure nonsense, player winning one month can loose over next month, so why to pull him out? And what the player keeps playing? Well they have to win sometimes. What might sometimes happen is just vice versa that some “unassigned” players are assigned to some affiliates. It might be the result of some dispute regarding the mechanism of affiliate tracking or simply marketing method used, but is based on some concrete business discussion/deal between the affiliate and the casino according to my experience.
3) No, it does not make sense.
4) Let assume, there is somebody trying to make the following marketing to casino players: “Get the bonus, play and if you win take the winning, if you loose go to your bank and fill in for the charge back!”. Well that guy would have the negative balance each month J Probably not a good partner for any casino.
What the short resume might be: my opinion is that affiliates could consider the risk he/she can/cannot share. Low risk “solution” might be a good CPA, but again the CPA amounts are often handled on the individual base. And the total income calculation in the middle or longer run (may be even one year) could be the preferred method of selection between different affiliate programs. The points mentioned in this thread alone without knowing the exact percentages and policy for charge backs, and so on are from my point of view just a part of “affiliate marketing tactics” and they will not tell what the real middle term income might be.
John Lancelet
GigaSlot.com