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Hi,
An option to promote your website (a casino) is to give an incentive to join. Of course we can promote bonusses etcetera, but I was wondering whether it is legal to give incentives YOURSELF (so not promoting a bonus THE CASINO gives).
For example, can you say ‘the biggest loser of the month’ (of your players) is the biggest winner because I will give him a TV (for example). Or: “One out of 100 players who wagers over 1000 euro gets a trip to Las Vegas” or whatever. You know what I mean…
After all I read about those UK recommendations in which even ‘poker here’ was illegal, I want to be sure whether it is legal or accepted to provide yourself an incentive for gambling more, under your account.
Thanks!
PJ
PS/ The question is a theoretical one… but just in case: which aff.programs allow the affiliate to contact their players? (So you can contact your players)
Nobody knows?
Is it legal to give self-organised incentives to your players?
Someone has to know the answer to this question. I’d assume it depends on the casino.
The problem is the question is weak.
Legal according to who?
The casinos country laws?
The players country laws?
The affiliate country laws?Or perhaps even the affiliate contract terms?
CPA and revshare often have very differnt terms.As you can see there is a matrix of possible answers depending on the legal jurisictions of the three parties – and the exact nature of the affiliate deal.
The question sounded simple –
The simple answer is maybe – but that doesn’t help anyone.
:tongue:But the detailed answer is complex and varied.
:lookarounI see what you’re saying Gooner. I think I know the general answer to this.
As for violating the Terms of the affiliate program, would you say in general as long as you are NOT on CPA, you’re free to do much more as far as incentives go.
Example…if I want to give rebates to players and I’m on revenue share, most casino’s wouldn’t have a problem with that.
Now given that, it’s the problem with most casino’s that you can’t get very good individual player stats?
I only promote poker at the time.
I’d certainly say that you should approach each poker room with the details of what you’re planning to do – even on rev share.
While it’s probably not crooked – it will raise eyebrows and they’ll want to talk it over and understand it – after it it’s a typical CPA style of scam.
Several casinos and poekr rooms do give detailed player stats – by the player names after often code number (and not always the same numbers that the players logs in with) so verification will be difficult.
So as far as affilliate logistics go – maybe it WILL work with some places.
:clapper:—
However, legally, you’re in big trouble in many major markets if you’re actively promoting incentives of ANY kind to join up.
I know that in the US the poker companys have to pormote a FREE TO PLAY site – and then have links on that to the pay site. Now they live and operate in a different country – but they still stay an arms length away from incentivised advertising in the US.
In the UK now, the gambling companies are also banned from advertising incentives to gamble in the UK space – which leads to the wierd situation where overseas affiliates are allowed to use incentivised banners – but UK affiliate have to replace all theirs with blander versions.
So there is two major markets where the gambling companies themselves will not advertise incentives to gamble … are you suuuuurrrreee that you want to try this ?
:nervous:casinoreports wrote:Nobody knows?Is it legal to give self-organised incentives to your players?
Are you asking whether vaious programs permit it? You need to ask each one.
If you are inquiring about the US law, I don’t think it is a good idea to pay people to gamble. I am not aware of any specific law adressing that, but common sense would say that this is above and beyond plain advertising.
I am not prepared to argue this point either, nor am I a lawyer or giving out advice.
TheGooner wrote:The problem is the question is weak.Legal according to who?
The casinos country laws?
The players country laws?
The affiliate country laws?Or perhaps even the affiliate contract terms?
:lookarounThat’s because my legal knowledge is weak too:terms:
I dropped the entire incentive idea… too much gray area…
your reasoning for why poker sites went to .net sites is completely incorrect.
I’ve been in the poker business for about 4 years now and have worked with one of the biggest poker magazines in the business.
The poker magazine went to making all advertisers go to .net because the United States justice department threatened to fine any US company that was promoting online gambling. The World Poker Tour was force to pay fines totaling an entire shows worth of advertising for allowing things like partypoker.com to advertise on their site. Now, all sites advertised in the US are .net – free sites.
As for the issue as a whole, I’m not sure about the UK, but in the US, you could get in trouble at any time for running an affiliate program, I’m 100% positive. Most people on this site won’t tell you that.
As I said, I work with (them as a client of mine) a certain poker magazine. Also, the company who writes the software for Bodog is a also a client of mine here in Atlanta. To avoid the US department of Justice, they (the software writer) has to lease the software to a company in Panama, then the software is leased to Bodog via the company in Panama. Payments are made back to Atlanta via the company in Panama.
Long story short, I’m 100% positive promoting casinos like everyone on this site is doing is illegal in the US. If the DOJ wanted to come after people, they could.
So, whether you offer incentives or not, it’s illegal. You are promoting online gambling, which is illegal. People keep saying “but I’m just an advertiser” etc, etc, etc. Yeah, so was the World Poker Tour. You can google it. The World Poker Tour got in trouble and faced HUGE fines. You don’t think http://www.play-my-casino.com could get in trouble?
Dominique wrote:but common sense would say that this is above and beyond plain advertising.As my long post points out, I think it’s important that people understand what they are involved in.
The “I’m just an advertiser” will not work in the US. Google the trouble the World Poker Tour got into for “just advertising” gambling sites.
It’s kind of like just advertising cocaine use. Uh, cocaine is illegal in the us and promoting the use of it will not be allowed. I’m not sure how anyone ever thought this business was legal.
You’ve seen all the .net commercials that run now. Check out major US business like http://www.bluffmagazine.com and how every link on there site is .net.
Affiliates are much harder to track down, but unless you have .net free sites on your affiliate pages, you’re subject to fines from the US justice department.
Interesting posts, Donkeystyle.
@Donkeystyle]You are promoting online gambling, which is illegal.I don’t agree I have never seen a law which specifically outlaws online gambling. If online gambling is already illegal, then why are they trying to pass a new law in the U.S. to [B wrote:
make[/B] online gambling illegal? Either it is already illegal, or it isn’t.
Engineer wrote:Interesting posts, Donkeystyle.I don’t agree; I have never seen a law which specifically outlaws online gambling. If online gambling is already illegal, then why are they trying to pass a new law in the U.S. to make online gambling illegal? Either it is already illegal, or it isn’t.
Exactly. They have been trying to make it illegal for years now.
Well, we could go round and round about this for days. I don’t think you guys fully understand what congress is trying to do. Gambling is illegal in the US, that’s a fact. What Congress is trying to do is implement ways to stop offshore companies from being able to do business is the US. The crux of the matter is not whether the gambling is illegal or not.
Here’s several stories related to the US Justice Departments views on it. They seized $3.25 mil from The Discovery Channel for accepting advertising money from Paradise Poker.
Read on. You’ll see radio stations, etc getting in trouble over it.
You think the DOJ can take $3.25 mil from someone for something that’s not illegal? Casino City got in trouble, filed a suit against the DOJ. The court tossed Casino cities suit out. No trial, no nothing. Gambling is illegal, there’s no merit whatsoever to Casino cities suit. That’s basically what the judge said.
http://www.gambling-law-us.com/Articles-Notes/advertising-online-casinos.htm
Casino City did not get into trouble, they filed a lawsuit on their own accord, to get an answer, once and for all. And they withdrew their suit on their own account.
The DOJ has a lot of power, law or no law.
They come to you and threaten to take away everything you have, and you cave, law or no law.
And that is what is going on, intimidation and the spreading of an untruth, and that is that there is a law against it. There is not. There are only local laws.
Your reaction is exactly what is desired, and the DOJ is thusly very successful with its campaign of intimidation.
The advertising businesses caved, not because there is a law, but because they didn’t think the revenues to be gained from taking these ads would equal the cost of going through years of legal procedures to prove what they knew all along – that they have done nothing illegal.
That is of course just my personal take on things and not a legal opinion and is not to be taken as legal advice in any way.
I know all about the DOJ, I use to work for Arthur Andersen. The DOJ took out the biggest accounting firm in the world for something that was later tossed out buy the highest court.
As for them not acting on law, do you think $3.2mil can be taken from someone with no law to back it up?
Google can’t afford to take on the DOJ?
Anyway, I understand what you’re saying. I’m an affiliate just like everyone else here. I’m not stopping what I’m doing because of any of this. But, I realize, many of the arguments people on here make have already failed in the face of the court.
As for Casino City, doesn’t the link I posted say the Judge tossed the case out and gave a long opinion on the merits of the case that was not good for online gambling? Didn’t it also say CS planned to appeal the judgement?
CS may have dropped the suit, but not just because they wanted to. Their original case didn’t make it very far at all.
