Bwin’s New Affiliate Program Changes
There are well over 1000+ affiliates out there that actively work in the online poker, casino or sports betting industry. As an affiliate it’s our job to send qualified traffic to different online gambling sites. If any of the people we send to the site signs-up for an account they become ours for life and we earn a commission based on how much the player deposits or loses.
Most affiliate programs out there operate with the affiliate in mind, but we’re seeing more and more programs start changing their terms or completely shutting down. Bwin has been a reputable brand over the years, but in September 2010 they opened up a new affiliate program (BeWinners.com) for their brand with a completely new set of terms and conditions. I’d like to outline a couple of the changes that have been made to the program, which are clearly unfair for the affiliate.
After a referred players account is 3 years old the affiliate will only earn 5% commission and this new term will be made retroactively, which means if you’ve already been promoting them any players from 2007 or earlier would be pushed from your current revenue share down to only 5%.
If you don’t refer a new player every 3 months that actually plays for real money then your affiliate account will be shut down and you’ll lose any of the players you’ve referred over the life of your account.
BeWinners.com is clearly trying to steal thousands of players from hard working affiliates with these new terms, as there is no other reason to impose these new rules if that wasn’t their motive. I’ve already pulled all of my links and I’d recommend you taking a look at your Bwin stats to find out how much revenue you’ve been losing since the changes were made last month.
One of the other terms that is completely set-up to steal commissions from affiliates is the fact that affiliates need to send in an invoice in order to be paid. If you don’t send Bwin an invoice within 12 months after making the commission then you’ll forfeit the money you’ve made. Now this isn’t illegal for Bwin to do, but considering no other poker affiliate programs require an invoice I feel this term is only present to steal commissions from affiliates unaware of this term.
Finally the last term that I absolutely feel is present simply to steal players is that players you refer need to make a deposit within 90 days of making their account. Now this shouldn’t be a problem for most referred players since they will generally deposit money within 90 days of setting up their account, but at the same time there are obviously some players out there that don’t or this term wouldn’t even be present.
It really seems that Bwin is trying to add to their bottom line by adding a bunch of small predatory terms to their new affiliate program. I really hope that all of us as affiliates can make a stand and stop promoting any programs that decide to treat their players this way. If you have a few minutes and a blog in the online gambling industry it’d be great if you could spread the word about BeLosers.com so more affiliates can learn about these new predatory terms from the BeWinners.com affiliate program.
