Online Casino

[Anonymous]

There is a major problem at Mainstreet Affiliates, IMO… They have NO terms and conditions. It is very difficult to determine, without that, how they will run their program.

Obviously, from the above post, bundling is a fact here. However, how would anyone know that ahead of time? While their FAQ page has some good details, it does not have the details required as a contract would.

MainStreet Affiliates – If you would like to work with AffiliateGuardDog.com to set forth Terms and Conditions, please do so at your earliest convenience.

Good luck Tarzan – I hope they get back to you and explain the strange stats.

[Anonymous]

I asked Mainstreet about bundling and negative carryover a while back: http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/bb/negative-carryover-and-bundling.21848.html?

They do bundle, and they do carry over negative balances.

On the other hand, they have an attractive 40% commission rate, which is great as long as you have positive earnings at every casino from month to month. If you get just one big winner, you’re pretty much screwed. :flush:

I agree that Mainstreet needs to come up with a written set of T&Cs. This shouldn’t be that difficult to do; just keep things simple and affiliate-friendly.

I would also like to see the casinos become unbundled so that a negative balance at one casino doesn’t wipe out positive revenue at the others. I’d be less afraid to maximize their exposure if the casinos weren’t bundled.

Shannon and Jason, what do you think?

[Anonymous]

That’s a big downer. I’m never going to use them unless they change this.

[ggsoftware]

Hi,

I’ll have this thread addressed shorty. I appreciate your patience.

Regards,

Jason

[Anonymous]

I think the playthrough requirement is a little on the high side. I mentioned this before a few months back.

“To withdraw your bonus, winnings, and deposit amount you will need to wager 40 times your deposit plus bonus.”

[Anonymous]

I would not and do not promote any place that does not have clear T&Cs.

That said, I would not and do not promote places that bundle and have negative carryover.

Hence, I haven’t given Mainstreet a second thought, even though I generally have heard some ok things about them.

[stevej]

I agree on all counts – it may be time to reconsider – especially if I can’t get this worked out. I am holding off making decisions now, just to see if Jason can get something done for us. To me this is the most desirable solution.

MainStreet used to run Playtech software before UIGEA passage and MainStreet, like Casino Blasters, but unlike many others, did what they could to protect our player base when they switched to RTG instead of just leaving us in the cold. For that I am grateful.

So I still get sub-level revenue, and I also get my old player base — so for those reasons, I kept them up. (plus making money, of course, until 2008 started)

So I am hoping sincerely that this BUNDLING is going to be looked at by upper management — if it does, it could be a win for everyone if this can get straightened out. Mainstreet would of course also win because of the positive effect and new support with affiliates they can procure through this very thread by simply indicating that they will get some T&Cs for us, and drop the bundling.

Negatives are a separate issue in my book.

[ggsoftware]

Hi Guys,

Mainstreetaffiliates.com is a single program where affiliates register one account and gain access to tracking codes, marketing materials, and reporting for several brands owned by one company.

It is completely fair for the company to determine the overall compensation package to have on offer. It is also completely fair to base the commissions on the total value brought to the relationship by the affiliate (the combined NGR earned from all of the players referred by the affiliate regardless of which brand the players choose). If you sum the results of all of the casinos the combined performance will be at least consistent with one larger casino (for recruitment and retention purposes different brands allows us to appeal to/better serve the needs of the different customer segments).

If the base was not calculated in this way then the affiliate would actually be getting more than 40% (and that’s a true 40% by the way…
we don’t promise one rate and then have a bunch of tiers to work through at lower rates like most programs). The point is that it’s fair.

Of course bundling is not the only consideration to base the decision on. It’s the overall package that counts including:

– commission rate
– are there lower tiers you have to work through
– conversion rates
– deposit success rates especially if US players are accepted
– the existence of excluded states (as this means some of your efforts may be wasted on potential players that can’t possibly convert)
– bundled or not bundled
– track record
– whether the operator is financially sound
– how committed is the operator to continuing to service the US so you can continue to recieve income from your US players
– and more

Mainstreet scores very high on these which is why Mainstreet received the #1 spot (tied for first to be completely accurate) recently in a survey of approximately 500 affiliates which asked simply, “Which affiliate program performed the best for you over the past 12 months?”. Out of respect for CAP we won’t name the affiliate community where the survey was conducted.

Having said all of this, we always listen to our affiliates and are going to review the feasibility of not bundling the brands. IF we choose to do this then the offer will be more than fair – equivalent to increasing the commission rate. This is going to take a bit of time so please be patient. One of the reasons it’s going to take time is that even if we decide we want to unbundle, our current affiliate software (provided by RTG) only supports bundling.

We are listening and we will follow up at the earliest possible time.

Jason

[stevej]

Thanks for responding. I really hope that Mainstreet will help us out here. Correct, it is completely fair for ANY company to determine the overall compensation package to have on offer, but that does not mean that the terms of the deal itself are fair. It means that it’s fair for the affiliate program to say “we’re bundling”, and it is also fair for the affiliate to say, “no way!”

aka: while it’s fair to make the offering no matter what it is, it does not make bundling a fair offering;

Let’s say I like MainStreet, Casino 1, and Casino 2…. say I trust them all the same. It makes sense I give them all equal exposure, right? But Mainstreet has done something. With four brands, they have quadrupled their exposure. This seems good for us at first until we realize that there is simply no insulation between the casinos. It’s the same company and when they have a big winner in one casino, instead of the casino itself paying the winner, they use the affiliate revenues from the other casinos to do that. Not their own resources. This is why bundling is predatory.

I personally would rather get to a site and be informed that I’ll make 30% rev share, up to 40% after a certain volume than I would being greeted with: “You can promote our four casinos and bring us in players. Then when you have a big winner in one of the casinos, we’ll use your earnings in the others to pay it off.”

Four times the exposure on our sites is not supposed to come as a liability to us, we should get a RAISE for that sort of thing.

[ggsoftware]

Hi Tarzan,

Thanks for your post and valid points. As stated, we are reviewing the feasabilty but this will take some time. We are limited to what we can do with our current affiliate software so please be patient and I will follow up at the earliest possible time.

Regards,

Jason

[stevej]

Hi Jason and thanks a lot for going to bat for us. I appreciate your responsiveness and positive attitude! And most of all I thank you for taking our thoughts seriously. :hattip:

I was going to mention that a very inexpensive way to do this without any major upheaval or software change would be to allow affiliates to have multiple accounts.

This is just a suggestion I thought of, because we’d really like to get you back into our ad serving software sooner than later. Again thanks for everything.

[Anonymous]

They do bundle, and they do carry over negative balances.

I’d like to know when this started again. They did carry over negative balances a long time ago, when they were Playtech. And while still Playtech, they eventually announced that they changed this to NO Negative carryover. That was great!

I certainly seen them make noise about this when they stopped carrying over negatives. Have we been notified when they started carrying them over again? I must have missed that newsletter.

[stevej]

Hi Jason – have you inquired yet as to whether or not I can sign-up multiple affiliate accounts to keep promoting your brands?

I can see why the permanent “software” part of the solution might take some time, but I fail to see why there is any need to wait in addressing whether or not they will continue to lump the casino brands in the future.

If the answer is positive, that the company will no longer bundle negatives, then the simple work-around is to allow us to open up separate accounts in the mean time to circumvent something that is a clearly an unjust practice.

I hope you understand my position, but basically, I’m not getting paid, and in fact the negative balance on my account has only grown. Mainstreet banners occupy prime real estate on one of our largest sites, so your banners will be coming down soon if this does not get rectified.

Again, thanks for your responsiveness in this thread so far. I mean no ill-will, it’s a financial decision that our company needs to make.

[ggsoftware]

Hi Tarzan,

Thank you for your post. At this stage a decision has not been made. The process is 2 steps. First, being a business decision on whether or not we are going to unbundle or keep as is. Second is that if we do decide to unbundle, the technical (and software) on how we do this.

I can understand that if our banners are taking up your prime inventory and you need to make a business decision then by all means do what you need to do. I would encourange you though in the meantime to stick it our as the way to get out is to keep the funnel full. But again I can understand your position and what you need to do.

So in the end a decison has yet to be made but it is still being reviewed and discussed. I have to say please be patient. I hope to have more information for you as soon as possible.

Thanks,

Jason

[stevej]

Hi Jason,

Thanks again for your timely response. If they cannot make the decision to stop engaging in bundling, then I can no longer support the brands.

I have offered a simple solution in the interim to deal with the software problem but that is not being acknowledged.

If they cannot decide whether or not to use my income at one casino to pay off a winner at another casino, instead of using their own funds, then I will cease to promote ANY of the casinos.

Thanks again for your time and response.

[Author]

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