You seem to have hit a nerve my friend.
Everyone has been cheated, duped, scammed and mislead at least once in their lifetimes. With the lack of government oversight and regulation in the US gaming market it will no doubt continue unabated until the gov changes their ‘head in the sand’ prohibitionist attitude. Apparently, the wrong politicians were paid off in the beginning. Now that ‘they’ got it shut off, they can’t get it started again.
But anyway. Your situation is easier and different than casino gambling. Your revenue and thus an affiliates revenue is derived from accurately dividing up a monthly payment. By using a third party payment processor like clickbank you can assure affiliates that they are getting the fair percentage of revenue they are entitled to. But unfortunately, not all clickbank merchants have good products and an association with them also has negative connotations.
The beauty and tragedy of internet websites is that most visitors do not really have a clue as to whether or not a site is legit or not. They can only judge by the quality of what they see. That’s how phishing sites can present themselves as the ‘real thing’ and get away with it.
That being said, I think your in house program is the best approach. The quality of your tips will determine whether customers stay with you. Correspondingly, the amount of affiliate revenue earned will determine whether they will continue to sell and promote you.
It is a totally different thing as to trusting a casino site to pay affiliates what they have earned.
If an affiliates income is based upon a percentage of deposits less withdrawals and chargeback’s, then a reliable trusted third party payment processor system would work for casinos. But when an affiliates income is based upon a percentage of ‘profits’ you by necessity are getting into the internal workings of the casinos accounting system.
One of the few relevant sayings I remember from my father is “figures don’t lie, but liars can figure”.
Independent audits are a good indication, but they guarantee nothing. The primary problem with those is that the casino is a client that selects and pays the auditor. If the auditor doesn’t do things ‘right’ they are replaced.
Paying a $10,000 or more licensing fee to some shadowy authority is also a good indication of honesty.
But none of that is the ‘holy grail’ of integrity, honesty and fairness.
I do not know about much about UK licensing nor stock exchange listing requirements, but it appears to me that regulation (and taxing) is the best hope for the industry.
Now that’s way off your subject, but I could not help myself.
And I personally prefer paypal.