Smart Live Affiliates No More As They Cut Off Relationship

Yet another online gambling affiliate program has cut ties with its affiliate partners and Gambling911.com now fears this will turn into a growing trend unless there is a cohesive effort to stop these occurrences soon.

Smart Live Affiliates it seems is now following in the footsteps of Grand Prive, an online casino group that utilizes the Microgaming software platform and is endorsed by the self-proclaimed "watch dog" association eCOGRA.

Dear affiliates,

 

Smart Live wish to inform you of our decision to call a halt to our

affiliate program with immediate effect. This decision has been made

as a result of ongoing technical issues and integration with Income

Access which we are unable to resolve fully.  This means that we are

not able to offer our affiliates the service that we want going

forward.

 

We have been constrained up until now with managing this on a manual

basis but this is not going to be possible to continue in this way if

we want to offer the best service possible.

 

Therefore with regret all affiliate accounts will be closed and no new

affiliates will be accepted to the program.

 

We at Smart Live feel that this is the best option to minimise any

further issues that will begin to affect all affiliates. We will

notify everyone should we reach a point where we can start to re-open

a program that is technically stable.

 

All affiliate accounts will be paid up to date with the next accounting period.

 

Thank you for your understanding in this matter and we hope to be able

to work with you again in the future under better circumstances.

 

Kind Regards

 

Smart Live Affiliates

 

Online gambling affiliates work tirelessly to drive customers to these establishments and now they are essentially screwed and at the mercy of a group that will determine on its own when to reopen.

"Yet another affiliate screw up," commented Greg Tingle of Media Man Australia, who last week brought to our attention concerns over the PKR Poker affiliate program not allowing customers access to stats during which time they addressed "technical issues".  PKR Poker is yet to fully address this concern with Gambling911.com, a site read by thousands of online gambling affiliates. 

"This one in regards to Smart Live Affiliates.  They has issues with Income Access.  Income Access usedto be the affiliate for Australia's Lasseters - AUSVEGAS and also the World Poker Tour's online shops.  In the meantime smart operators like PartyGaming, Virgin Games and BetUS are cleaning up, taking names and kicking ass."  

Tingle also alluded to another shaky online gambling operation, Lucky Ace.

"Lucky Ace also looks to be on its last legs, with numerous negative reports on them in the casino affiliate forums.  Maybe this industry does need further regulation, but there's always going to be rouge type operators.  I trust Gambling911 to continue to shoot straight in an industry known for way too mush BS and spin."

Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com 

Submitted by Jagajeet Chiba on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 08:44
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Comments

Smartlive latest announcment on Forums

Thu, 10/29/2009 - 07:35 — Guest
Dear Affiliate, We are delighted to announce the re-opening of the Smart Live Affiliate Program! We would like to welcome back all of our affiliates and assure you that your stats are now all up to date and commissions will be paid tomorrow. As a result of a complete technical upgrade, we have been able to: • Resolve many long-term issues that were preventing us from running a smooth Affiliate Program • Develop a new affiliate website with more information and usability: www.smartliveaffiliates.com • Provide better reporting tools - including unique ID reporting • Update banners that are easier to locate • Implement new incentives and promotions to reward affiliates long term • Launch our Poker affiliate program We have thoroughly tested the data and worked very closely with Income Access to ensure that all technical issues have been fully resolved, enabling us to provide the best service possible to you the affiliate. All of us at Smart Live would like to thank you for your patience with the Affiliate Program this year and appreciate that due to our problems we have not yet been able to provide the service you deserve. Therefore, for all existing affiliates we would like to welcome you back by offering you a flat 40% commission for November and December. (Standard terms and conditions apply) We are also now happy to be able to fully launch our Poker brand and have creatives and banners available for you to start promoting this straight away. This means more products to promote and more money to earn! We very much look forward to working with you closely and in developing a successful relationship going forward. Here's to our mutual SUCCESS! Kind regards, The Smart Live Affiliates Team

Makes No Sense

Tue, 09/08/2009 - 21:37 — Guest
They had to build up the affiliate program to get their site rolling, now they don't need the affiliates, they already have the players. Income access takes a piece of the pie...they are NOT cheap to use, plus paying an affiliate at least 35%. I believe at 1 time when they first started out they were offering up to 60% to affiliates, at these #'s it will ruin their business. They can not sustain their business by giving away all the money. Just my 2 cents, but it will be a trend that keeps on rolling. Sure they will get some bad press by affiliates, but really y would they care? They have players, and if players win or like the software "word of mouth". Good luck though, hopefully it will work out for the affiliates.

Smartlivecasino official statement

Tue, 09/08/2009 - 04:32 — Guest
We deeply regret that many of you are so disappointed. Whilst we quite expected this response, some clarifications need to be made on our part to ensure that we are communicating our position as effectively as possible. First of all, we want to reassure everybody that the Smart-live affiliate program has not shut down –as stated from different sources - but is momentarily suspended, in light of some technical issues that need to be 100% sorted out before launching the whole new affiliate program again. In fact, previously we have managed to continue running the whole process with a very manual processes, we feel that this cannot be done in future, because of an increased number of affiliates, traffic and the next launch of the poker platform. The new management and affiliate team strongly believe that transparency is the main value in a business relationship with our affiliates and partners. So, instead of hiding behind the trees and claiming that everything is ok – and we bet there are some out there doing just that- we would rather be honest and prefer to pause the program for some weeks, get exclusively focused on what needs to be sorted out, changed and implemented and get back in the arena in the best possible shape. Secondly, during the closure period, existing affiliates will continue to be paid for the revenue generated by existing customers referred. Each one of our affiliates will be provided with a specific report showing all the values and the amount of updated commissions as soon as the program is live again. We are honouring our Lifetime revenue commissions and have no intention to renege on this. It is just that whilst we are sorting out the issues affiliates will not be able to view statistics. Finally as a gesture of good will once we are 100% confident that everything is stable with the program, , we will be ready to reward all existing affiliates with an increased flat rate of 40% commissions on net revenues for the first 2 months once that we re-launch the program. We hope that this clarifies our situation and looking forward to seeing you all again soon when we have better news! Many thanks Smart Live Affiliates

They should be sued

Mon, 09/21/2009 - 07:11 — Guest
There has to be a way of getting back at these companies who are indulging in unfair business practices and cheating in the name of the clauses in contracts, which no one can object to. Enough of being taken for a ride. They should be made to pay so much that their business goes down for cheating others.

I have heard the SLC has a

Wed, 09/02/2009 - 16:54 — Guest
I have heard the SLC has a lot of money backing it, but not a lot of brains. Im surprised that they can't track players and data on Income Access. This is the most used software in the gaming affiliate market. I think that they have a man power deficiency. They should have launched fully knowing all the details of what they wanted to be tracked! This will really cost them, you dont want to piss affiliates!

happens

Wed, 09/02/2009 - 13:48 — Guest
It is a problem indeed with these programs that appear over night and disappear the same way. Affiliates will always try new programs with new products because they thing it is easier to convert and get some money - might be.. but as you can see, these is what happens with these affiliate running to promote new out of the box products. They should stick to old reputable programs, and in some case unfortunately there are surprises here as well. A note on the article: I have been working with LuckyAce and their sister program MyLotto (owned by the same company) for over a year and always got paid in time, by the 5-6th of each month from both programs. If there are complaints from affiliates there must be some reasoning behind, and many times it is about CPA abuse. On the other hand, a bad experience I recently had was with 10bet that refused my payment and closed my account with a stupid explanation that makes no sense to put it in this comment.

Down but not out!

Tue, 09/01/2009 - 18:07 — Guest
You can still register for a smartlive affilaite account. http://affiliates.smartliveaffiliates.com/registration.asp Maybe I can make a quick buck before they go down for good...Oh, wait that's the problem.

What a shame

Tue, 09/01/2009 - 11:49 — Guest
Seems harsh blaming software issues. They should just informed the affiliates they are going offline for a set number of days while fixing internal software issues and will be online soon rather than messing over everyone. What a shame as SmartLive spent a lot of money time and effort building their affiliate program and relations.