There have been some conflicting opinions on what the Cryptologic/Boss Media poker merger means to players and affiliates.  Some argue that less competition is bad for the industry. Others are worried that their Cryptologic players will not like the software and leave. Some worry that if a player wanted to play on Boss they would be playing there anyway and not Cryptologic while others worry the monthly bonuses will go away.

While all of their negatives certainly have a case I feel this can turn out to be a good thing in the long term. Let’s face it, Cryptologic has seen better days. They have seen major skins leave the network. Littlewoods and Poker Plex have already left, WPTOnline has announced they are closing and William Hill has already announced they are leaving to iPoker. This has shrunk the player base by 20% and that is with William Hill still around for a few more months.

In my opinion Cryptologic and Boss Media are a great match. Both have the same rakeback cap, they do not deduct bonuses from MGR, have strong gaming businesses outside of poker and have strong gaming brands. This will help attract new players to the network and help retain existing players. The game quality on Cryptologic and Boss Media are also about the same so not much will change there.

So what about affiliates? What will happen with us? While it will give us one fewer network to offer the skins on the new Boss Media/Cryptologic Network will have more competition between them. There should be more promotions and bonuses for our players. I feel it is safe to assume the standard Boss Media bonus of 20% contributed rakeback will stay the same. This makes a bonus 50% rakeback when combined with the standard 30% rakeback.

The one concern I have is that currently Boss Media has a minimum $100 MGR policy for players to get rakeback in a month. If Boss Media continues to enforce this then it may alienate some micro limit players. It is possible that the Cryptologic skins may not have this policy. For that reason, and the fact Boss Media limits the number of accounts a player can have to three on the network, makes this a great time to encourage players to sign up for our existing Cryptologic offers on BetSafe, Sun Poker and Interpoker.  The merger will take place during the first quarter of 2009.

An exciting announcement was made late today by Chipleader, the affiliate program for Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.    These two poker rooms, who will soon create the Cereus Network, announced that they will allow players that have not played on Absolute Poker or Ultimate Bet for 90 days and did not originally sign up through an affiliate to move to our rakeback program.  This is huge news.  Answering support emails I know that there are several players a day that we cannot get rakeback for because their accounts are too old.  Even if the player was not active that player still could not move to our rakeback program.  For the month of October that all changes.

If you are a PAS publisher and have players ask about getting rakeback on an existing account ask them how they signed up and how long it has been since they played.  If it has been longer than 90 days and the player went directly to their website to sign up then refer them to PAS support or get their username and email and send it to us.  If Chipleader decides they have in fact been inactive for three months and are not connected to another affiliate they will move them to us.  This is a huge opportunity to convert players that have been waiting for this type of situation to get rakeback on an existing account.

If you have any questions please contact support (at) pokeraffiliatesolutions.com.

Pokeraddict

Everywhere the news is reporting a complete economic crisis.  Banks are failing, stocks are plunging, housing markets are a mess and people have stopped splurging on many things.  How will this affect online poker?

Just because the economy is in bad shape does not mean all sectors are failing.  For example, video game and console manufacturers are reporting record sales.  Why is this?  It is because people spend a little money upfront and they can play for free for a long time.  They don’t have to spend any gas money to be entertained.  Online poker enjoys that same luxury.

If you are on a mailing list for any casinos or follow the industry you know that Las Vegas is hurting.  They are giving away the place to lure players in.  This is because on top of the poor economy airfares and gas prices have skyrocketed.  Also people are reluctant to take time off of work during these hard times.  This makes it harder for players to travel, especially to an expensive destination like Las Vegas.  In past poor economies were actually good for brick and mortar casinos, high energy prices seem to be to blame for that not being the case this time around.  This does not mean people have stopped gambling though.

Online poker and all online gambling are perfect fits for this economy.  Players don’t have to spend time traveling, spend gas money, or take any time off work to enjoy their past time.  Since so many rakeback players are at the very least break even players it is also a hobby that costs them little, if any money and of course there are pros that make their living off poker.  In my opinion online poker will easily survive, if not grow in these dire times.  People are still going to play poker and online poker has made that so convenient for players compared to their alternatives that I think the entire industry will continue to flourish.

The domain name you choose is the most important part of your start up website.  This is not only true with your performance in the search engines but also with how easily your potential customers will identify and remember your domain name.  The latter can be vastly improved by finding a domain name that can be branded well with a logo or mascot.

Google and other search engines use your domain name as part of your score when ranking you for searches.  If your domain name is missing rakeback, rake or even poker from it then it will already have a disadvantage over your competitors.  The search engines know by your domain name how your site relates to a user’s search.  A domain name missing key search words will almost always be outperformed by domains that include the keyword.  This is especially true at first.

The first thought you should have when buying a domain name is trying your best to find a domain name that not only catches the search engine’s attention but your potential users as well.  Try to use some creativity.  Finding a domain name that includes your best search term followed by a potential branding word or phrase is very important.  Using a little creativity now can go a long way in increasing the potential of your website.  This doesn’t just go for poker, this goes for all online industries.

When it comes to a rakeback partnership between you and PAS you may be adding rakeback offerings to enhance your already existing business.  We have successful coaching, bonus and other gaming sites as our partners.  If this is the case we will use what is called a subdomain.  In most cases we will use rakeback.yourdomain.com to help you with your Google performance.

As a PAS publisher there are additional things you can do for your site.  In the admin of your site in your CMS each page has a section to edit the tags of your site.  Making your own unique page titles, keywords and descriptions for each page will greatly improve your visibility in Google.  It only takes about 15 minutes to tag your entire site and the return on this small time investment can be incredible.  There is nothing more satisfying then seeing Google sending you potential customers for free.

If you ever have any questions about domain names or our SEO features please contact John at support (at) pokeraffiliatesolutions.com or Tony at tonyg (at) pokeraffiliatesolutions.com.

Anybody that follows the online gambling forums knows that Bodog has seen better days. Bodog was founded in 1994 and has never met such a challenging time in their entire existence.

Bodog has had several issues that go beyond the UIGEA. One is that they had their domains registered in the U.S. In September 2007 a judge awarded nearly $49,000,000 to 1^st Technology LLC. Bodog had few assets in the U.S. and so their prized domain names were awarded as collateral as a part of that suit. This left Bodog in a situation where players were unable to find their site. Bodog went with Newbodog.com and later that month settled with Bodoglife.com. It would prove to be very difficult for Bodog to have the massive marketing and internet presence they once had when their recognizable domains were lost.

Another issue is that Calvin Ayre, founder and former CEO, decided to antagonize U.S. law enforcement. He always had the vigilante “catch me if you can” attitude but he couldn’t keep a low profile. This gave the U.S. government an added incentive to pursue Bodog. Calvin Ayre has since turned over the North American operations (essentially just the U.S. since Bodog has never accepted Canadian players) to Morris Mohawk Gaming but that hasn’t turned the heat off.

It was reported late in July that over $24,000,000 was seized from a U.S. processor after a two year investigation into Bodog’s processing. The processor was making check payments to U.S. players on behalf of Bodog and several other U.S. facing gambling sites. After the seizure Bodog announced that this was not a direct asset seizure of Bodog. While this is true it certainly hurt in more than one way.

First Bodog’s share of the loss had to be substantial. Some in the forums have speculated it was around $15,000,000. Considering the slim margins this would be the profit on roughly $300,000,000 in sports wagers. While some say that Bodog can afford to take a hit like that it still has to hurt them financially. Another problem this brought out in the open was that Bodog and its processors are targets of a massive federal investigation. While there are plenty of processors willing to process payments to U.S. players there aren’t many that want to get involved with Bodog fearing they will become targets themselves. This has presented Bodog with many problems.

Players have been complaining constantly about Bodog’s cashout delays. They are among the longest in the industry. The only way to cash out of Bodog for U.S. players is by check. Right now it is taking about 2 months to receive a check. While players that don’t win will never notice the delays because they don’t cash out serious players have run out of patience and are leaving.

What does this mean to players and affiliates?

To players with some patience this is a great opportunity to play somewhere that has extremely soft games. The sharks are running for the doors but the fish are staying since they don’t know there are problems. With football season almost here the games will only get better. Also players outside the U.S. are not having any problems at all getting paid. Affiliates shouldn’t miss a beat either. It will take some patience but the checks will come. Affiliates promoting Bodog through PAS have nothing to worry about as you will get paid for Bodog at the same time you get paid for all of the other rooms you promote through us regardless of whether we have been paid yet. This is certainly not an ability to pay issue for Bodog, this is only a processing delay.

Bodog has also had issues in non gambling related ventures. Bodog’s Mixed Martial Arts venture was a failure and many feel the music venture will be a money pit as well. Combine this with reports of massive customer service layoffs in a Bodog division and things are really rocky right now.

There have been some rumors floating around that Bodog may leave the U.S. market very soon. Barring some really major news don’t expect that to happen. Even if it does happen it would be shocking to the industry if they left before this football season ended and that is 6 months down the road. Keep in mind that since the U.S. is Bodog’s biggest market leaving would be an absolute last resort. This is especially true since Bodog has been unable to get white-listed in the UK, doesn’t take Canadians and hasn’t been successful in attracting European players. For now expect the status quo.

Pokeraddict

Poker Trillion has been in a war with Boss Media for the last five months over being kicked off the International Poker Network (IPN) that Boss Media manages. There has been a lot of emotional mudslinging on the part of Poker Trillion. They have made several claims that have not been substantiated by the online gambling community and denied by Boss Media.

This all began earlier this year. Poker Trillion was offering players 30% rakeback in cash which is the cap on IPN. The trouble is that they were also giving players 50%-60% rakeback on tournament entries which is not allowed under network rules. Players can only receive 30% back and that is only if they rake $100 or more in a month. This made Boss Media and other skins unhappy.  Poker Trillion refused to honor the demands of Boss Media and the end result was the removal of Poker Trillion from IPN.

Poker Trillion came out and made this statement after filing an attempted lien on IPN’s assets:

““It is to be expected that if Boss Media follow the proper code of conduct then they will shortly make a full and complete disclosure to the Stockholm Stock Exchange on which they are listed; this invariably will have a catastrophic effect on their share price, and may even lead to the arrest by the authorities of certain members of their management team and the possible suspension of their shares.”

“This in turn would mean that players not in the Poker Trillion stable could find their funds that are held by other partners of Boss Media in serious jeopardy.”

In my opinion this is completely absurd. Poker Trillion, in the middle of a nasty legal battle threatens other players on IPN. The claim that players would lose their funds due to this legal battle is laughable. Let’s say Poker Trillion is right about all of this and sticks it to Boss Media. Why would shares being suspended affect player funds? They are held in trust by the LGA. Is Poker Trillion telling us that if they were somehow awarded the assets of the company that they would run off with player’s funds? Are they just trying to destroy IPN’s business by arguably defaming comments?

Poker Trillion then announces they have been awarded garnishes on bank accounts tied to Boss Media. While this was true it was reported by third parties this was only as a guarantee of player funds on any potential legal award. They were not actually awarded the bank accounts as Poker Trillion claimed. It’s still business as usual at IPN.

Now fast forward to this week. Poker Trillion announces they have been awarded the IPN servers and that Boss Media must close its doors.

POKERTRILLION.com Successful in its Application to Seize Boss Media Servers in Malta
Malta August 18, 2008 –The online poker site POKERTRILLION.com has announced that on 18th August 2008 at the First Hall Civil Court, Malta (Court record and Complaint Number 755-08), Judge Gino Camilleri issued a judgement authorising Trillion Ltd to enforce seizure of the Boss Media Malta Limited and Boss Media AB servers, and that these servers cease being used for any commercial activity as from 18th September 2008 with Boss Media not being allowed to appeal the court’s decision any further.

This judgement, which relates to Trillion Limited’s multi-million Euro law suit for breach of contract against Boss Media AB and their associated companies, comes off the back of a number of successful applications made to the courts in Malta by Trillion Ltd. POKERTRILLION.com C.E.O Andy Pyrah explains, “Today’s decision will in effect bring down Boss Media’s operation in their licensed jurisdiction of Malta on September 18, and any partner still on the Boss (IPN) Poker Network at this stage will see their service closed down too”.

The judge further ordered that the cosignatory which is now responsible for the equipment also provides full accounts of the revenues being generated from this equipment.

Pyrah comments further, “It should also be noted that despite appeals from Boss Media, we’ve been successful in every one of our applications that we’ve filed with the courts in Malta and this includes having our initial garnishee order increased from €5million to €20million earlier this month, this in turn means that there is now a €20million freezing order on all Boss Media’s assets within this jurisdiction, and in accordance with European law we will be applying for this to be executed all over Europe”.

This claim has been made by Poker Trillion but has not been backed up with court documents or third party confirmations. Boss Media denied the release in this statement:

Poker Trillion’s recent comments are a reckless attempt to support a legal action that is without merit and initiated as retribution for their dismissal from the Boss Media network. To be clear, player funds are not affected by the current proceedings. All players’ funds are held separately under the control of the Malta Lotteries and Gaming Authority and cannot be seized by any court.

Poker Trillion is a former customer of Boss Media who was terminated because of rake back violations. They have since then repeatedly tried to disrupt the Boss Media business through the dissemination of groundless rumors. In April 2008 Poker Trillion alleged in a press release a claim that among other things, Boss Media player funds where frozen. The allegations were false but typical of the type of tactics employed by Poker Trillion.

While there has been no hearing on the merits of the Poker Trillion suit, there have been preliminary hearings on the matter. Boss Media has assured that adequate security is provided in Malta in the event of an award of damages against it which we believe be to unlikely.

Boss Media is currently exploring various legal options regarding our Maltese assets and can assure that Boss Media has the requisite assets in place to ensure that our business will continue to operate with the highest standards. In the extremely unlikely event that any Malta operations would be affected, Boss Media have high-performance back-up systems in place to ensure continued service to all our customers and their players.

I find it difficult to believe an attorney was consulted before these releases were made.  There is simply too much misinformation and emotion in them.

So what should players, skin owners and affiliates think? To me the only thing this tells me is to not touch Poker Trillion. This was all very avoidable. If Poker Trillion had followed network rules or taken the threats seriously they would not be in this situation. Now they have shown themselves to be what I believe very childish in an industry that looks for leadership. All of their players were paid and Poker Trillion received all funds owed by Boss Media. Poker Trillion has moved on to the Everleaf Network and life should go on. It seems to me all they have done since being forced out of the IPN door is make a bunch of noise to damage the reputation of a company they obviously never respected to begin with. If they had put all of this effort into improving their own business instead of trying to publicly destroy another business they may have built a massive poker room.

Pokeraddict