Launching a new rakeback offer to our network may seem as easy as adding a link on Poker Affiliate Solutions.  There are, however, many other issues involved. 

Recently we were approached by a poker room on a U.S. friendly network.  I was a bit uneasy about adding this room.  They are related to a sportsbook that gets a very poor grade at Sportsbookreview.com.  After doing my research I was convinced the problems were due to sports bets, not poker, so I went ahead with the procedure. 

I sent their rep a list of questions.  I was satisfied that they met all of the conditions a PAS offer should have.  I made a detailed review, added them to our system and then sent the link to the rep for review.  He agreed it was correct and added it to our site.  We then made it available to our partners.

After a few weeks, conversions fell well below expectations and several players were not tracked.  I double checked with our rep and he said our link was correct.  The players were still not getting stats.  As I was compiling a list to send them, I received an email saying it was urgent that we discuss offering rakeback for their site.  According to them, we were not approved to offer rakeback for their room.  This contradicts the fact that PAS, a rakeback facilitator, was approached by them to offer rakeback for their poker room.  It also contradicted all of the email exchanges we had.

We immediately removed them from Poker Affiliate Solutions and from our publisher offers.  I then sent an email to their rep to see exactly where we went wrong.  I quoted previous exchanges.  At this point, I have not heard back from them.  I have wasted about two days worth of work gathering information, signing up for their affiliate program, writing reviews, and answering player support emails about a poker room that we will not be offering.

This is, of course, not how most poker rooms are.  Most times we get involved with affiliate programs and representatives we either know personally or know they will take care of our players and the players of our publisher partners.  We decided to take a chance with a smaller room and, thus far, it’s had a bad ending.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Poker Affiliate Solutions, Poker Rooms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.