CAP Community Member of the Month Spotlight: July 2013

We are excited to spotlight CAP’s Community Member of the Month for July 2013… Congratulations, Otto Bergstrom, also known in the forums as Cassaon888!
Cassaon888 is a somewhat newer member of CAP, joining the community in August of 2012. Since then, he has posed some great questions, ideas, and warnings to fellow community members.
Kudos to you Cassaon888! Many members in this community appreciate you doing your part!
We caught up with him to learn more about her career in the business!
How did you get started as being an affiliate in iGaming?
In 2006 a friend of mine approached me to start a portal casino with him. It was pretty much a sideline job for me until about a year ago. I must admit back then it was far easier making cash from the casino industry than it is today.
What are your top traffic drivers, and how did you learn them?
At this stage our site is getting a lot of traffic from Facebook, Twitter, gambling forums, Google, Yahoo and Bing. With regard to social media one thing I’ve learnt is that less is more. To be honest it’s still pretty much a learning curve for us. As of late we decided just to focus on adding quality content to our our site. I must admit so far the results have been very encouraging.
What factors do you look at when deciding on an operator?
The factors I normally take into account are the following:
1. Is the site licensed in a reputable jurisdiction (white listed), i.e. Alderney, Malta, Gibraltar or UK?
2. How long has the site been online? I believe the longer a site is online the more reputable it tends to be.
3. Does it value responsible gambling? If a site has a self-exclusion option and betting limits this indicates to us that it values its customers and not out to just grab their hard-earned cash.
4. Wagering requirements: In most cases we won’t market a site if the wagering requirements attached to the deposit are too steep. I guess the industry standards are 20xd+b or 30xb. At times you might have a very good online casino but the play-through requirements of its bonus are just plain diabolical. Instead of penalising the casino for this we’ll advise our players to rather stay clear of the bonus.
5. Certification: To be honest it does help but their are so many loopholes nowadays. From my experience sites that are certified by eCogra or TST can be the biggest rogues at times. I guess it boils down to how popular a site is with players and its credibility at gambling forums like CAP, GPWA, Affiliate Guard Dog and Casinomeister.
What are your thoughts on legal standing of the online gambling industry?
I think legalisation is tantamount. That being said, so many casinos have shaved players and affiliates alike the last couple of years I’m beginning to doubt if legalisation really helps. I guess on paper it looks really good but when it comes to enforcing online gambling policies it’s an entire different matter altogether.
What was the biggest lesson you learned in your years of being in this business?
This might sound like an old cliche but honesty is still the best policy. When we sign up with new affiliate programs the idea is to write our casino/game reviews as objective as possible. In other words if certain aspects of the casino does not appeal to us we’ll mention it in our reviews.
This is our motto: ”Slow and steady wins the race”. Don’t just slap content onto your site with the hope of landing players try and write your articles as unique and informative as possible. All of us have been guilty of this at some stage or another.
Build a proper relationship with affiliate managers. To me this is where it all begins. Ask your affiliate manager for more info regarding the online casino you’re about to promote.