- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
From : http://www.gamblingmagazine.com/ManageArticle.asp?C=840&A=15399
What do you guys think?
asino Affiliate Programs and the Massive Frauds
Oct 09, 2005Massive Frauds in the Casino Affiliate Programs!
Later this week we will have a special report on the massive frauds that are taking place with the casino affiliate programs controlled by the crooked organized crime operators. This report is based on extensive research, testings, reporting, complaints, investigations, compiled for the last 8 years. The source of this information comes from game developers, their own directors and officers, their management and accountants, their technical support and sales teams, their marketing companies, their licensees, their affiliates, and also their own players.The report clearly confirms that none of these casino affiliate programs tracks the real sales properly, and most don’t track them at all. We have seen plenty of massive frauds, and figures confirming that 99% or 100% of the sales were not tracked at all, so the poor innocent affiliates got massively cheated and robbed by these thieves.
In addition to the casino licensees running these massive frauds, there are also plenty of marketing companies who run these dishonest casino affiliate programs based on cheating, and defrauding the affiliates. Their entire business models are based on frauds, and nothing else than frauds, and we are certain about this because there is no possible doubt about it.
Thousands of naive affiliates wrongly think that bigger is better, so they signed up with the bigger ones, including many public companies. The fact is that the biggest ones are the worst, and they are only bigger because they cheated and defrauded more affiliates and more players with their fraudulent rigged software.
It is absolutely certain that the game developers are heavily involved with these massive frauds, together with their own licensees with their marketing companies. This is pure and straight organized crime at a massive level.
The smart webmasters and affiliates are dropping these fraudulent scams and insisting on pay per click and pre paid advertising. The others are getting massively cheated, more than they can ever imagine.
Stay tuned and don’t miss this special exclusive report, based on inside true and accurate information ……….
:crazy:
Gawd–I’m shocked Claude Levy is still around. This guy is a kook–have a good look at his site and the tabloid stuff he’s putting out there. Just because it’s in print, doesn’t make it true.
A bit of history on Claude–he’s a former Crypto licensee who has had it in for Crypto, ever since he lost his license. Since that time, he has been on a mission to smear not only Crypto, but pretty much anything online gambling related. :blahblah:
If I want important and factual news pertaining to the online gambling industry, I would glean far more by reading Better Homes and Gardens. :laughing:
I would have been unconvinced had he used the word “frauds”. But we’re talking about “massive frauds” here people. :bullshit:
Just to clarify with this edit, I am being 100% snarky.
Gambling Magazine, like GreedyGirl said, is a mouthpiece for one Claude Levy. His people have no conscience whatsoever – they regularly rip off content from other sites as well, including Got2Bet.
That being said, I would still like to see this “evidence” of massive fraud. And I certainly would like to see who he is targeting before making any further comment. (ie. I also believe there is fraud in the affiliate marketing industry).
I too believe that there is some fraud in this industry – I wish that it wuld be possible to conduct periodic audits. We pretty much depend on the program’s word regarding stats.
But this guy is a total cook and has an agenda. I wouldn’t put much faith in anything he has to say.
I left this one up because it is so rediculous its funny. Its kind of like when you go to the market and are at the check out stand and read those tabloids that scream out “Bigfoot is sent to Iraq on secret mission to rescue Elvis!”
:hithead::tongue: :tongue: :hithead:
I track my site exits and most of the bingo sites are pretty close.
Wish I could track the conversions.
Professor wrote:…those tabloids that scream out “Bigfoot is sent to Iraq on secret mission to rescue Elvis!”Yeah that was amazing that story. He only missed finding him by about 5 minutes too. How unlucky can you get!
Rumour has it Bigfoot is going to IPO soon by the way…
I’ve forwarded my url directly to the casinos and was able to check forwarding stats against clickthroughs….I’ve found Wager Profits to be exactly right. Unfortunately ….Wager Profits was the ONLY COMPANY who was. Is easy enough to find out if you’re getting skinned…that is, unless you got your head in the sand ….and you don’t want to find out. My compliments to Wager Profits …they’re square.
I have to say that he is probably closer to the truth than most people
would like to acknowledge or admit. To side one’s view on the other end of
the spectrum of honesty is just as ridiculous people.
Yes he is a big joke
I seen him last years all over the net posting about fraud, mafia and you name it.
:spam4:have to say that he is probably closer to the truth than most people
would like to acknowledge or admit. To side one’s view on the other end of
the spectrum of honesty is just as ridiculous people.
there alot of truth in some agendas
Hi all,
well to be completely honest, from a standpoint of being cynical (as anyone should be when it involves
1) money + people you don’t know extensively
2) the fact that you are not able to conduct competent audits without noticenow consider this; most places deliver in realtime nearly all your stats EXCEPT deposits/income.
I have always found it to be an unnecessary kink in a system where trust is involved, that the money line is always updated not in real time (except RTG, whom I commend for that but then condemn them for what i consider perhaps their way of making up for not being able to have that inbetween time from player’s true status to our stats … a little thing they like to call “managers credits” and about 3 other columns of places where they can get away with shaving a bit of your income without your having any way of knowing if its true or not …)
Tell you what would impress the hell out of me; would be if Microgaming showed everything in realtime, which we all know IS possible; proven to be possible by RTG, cause i’ve watched my own deposits into an RTG casino and seen it show up in the stats in like seconds…
so the tech experts can spout all the mumbo jumbo to me they want to about why its not possible this and not possible that; but I’m not so stupid I believe it is possible to the point of being a working model for one software; that another software couldn’t achieve it.
Now as far as Crytpo goes; well they make far too little money IMHO for as much as I know I like the software; when I first started I promoted IC and Sands heavily but they never made any money. IC’s stats never showed any signups early on so I quit them in favor of the Sands only later to realize that i had a bunch of players signed up there but the place had only actually sent me a check like one or two times. They were a huge waste of my resources and money. Since then I’ve started using IC again and have seen at least some results that shame the Sands, though nothing outstanding by any means.
and I know for a fact that you can resign up using a different email address (this was a few years ago granted) and you can successfully move your account from one affiliate getting credit for your play, to another.
which then leaves it no big stretch to the imagination to think that your players are easily siphoned off.
However I have no such proof other than I know I moved my account several times, mostly due to the fact that I’d lose my info I needed to regain access to the casino (often more than 6 months had passed btw for those that argue people don’t return after 6 months – coughbullshit) and rather than wait for intercasino’s incompetent support to reply, if they ever replied;. . I’d just resign up and get a new account. *keep in mind this was a long time ago and things may have changed since then.
results are bottom line. look no further. other stats are great for judging a program’s status on your site to help you adjust your angle so that you can make best the program’s strong points to your advantage. but if you want to know who your best program is … look at the bottom line + amount of exposure and no further. *I cannot help but think of Vegas Partner when I mention this; they were decent in every category except the most important one, which of course is a shame imho that they couldn’t show a bottom line that was even close enough to warrant my keeping them listed on my sites. They started out making decent money but as my player base grew, my income fell off. sound familiar anyone?
who gives a damn what your download to real player ratio is – if it is only making a fraction of the money that the other place makes you; even though they have dismal stats in most categories … except the most important one.
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.
stdio wrote: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 agree with you on this. There should be periodic, unannounced audits. The system just lends itself to skimming (we call it shaving).
However, the guy who wrote the article at the start of this thread is a certifiable disgruntled nut who has been making unsubstantiated crazy claims for years.
While there is no real control in place, people who work at it and think outside the box make very nice money in this industry. Also, there is such a wide choice of affiliate programs, you can always toss those you make no money with or whom you don’t trust. If you go to the conventions you are able to speak to the people and get a feel for them.
Also, most of us conduct tests and checks by having friends sign up under our code or signing up under each other’s codes and watching the statistics.
Many track clicks also and we are aware of discrepancies.
There is always a certain percentage of lost traffic – it varies from program to program and I do not recollect the figures. maybe someone can help out with that.
An independent auditing system would be a really great thing.
The APCW is doing some of this with programs who volunteer for it.
Like greedygirl said, Claude Levy is well known by us ‘old timers.’ One thing to note, Claude had utterly destroyed Starnet. He brought a $300 Million Market Capitalization Stock down to pennies in a period of 4-5 months. He warned them and all he was arguing over was $300,000.
So, don’t completely write this guy off.
