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The Grand Prive Online Casino group, which consists of its flagship brand, Bella Vegas, recently cut off their advertising affiliates in a move that has stunned industry diehards.
It's one thing to have noted online gambling authority J. Todd produce YouTube videos that so eloquently point out the bonehead moves of industry operators (we were left wondering how many bodies Todd has in his tool shed - just kidding). But once the word gets out to powerful online casino news portals such as CasinoMeister.com and even Gambling911.com for that matter, we are talking a whole different animal.
Aside from affiliates, who typically reel in immense numbers of signups, Grand Prive Casinos and their Bella Vegas brands rely heavily on search rankings.
Type in the name of either and the news related to this scandal has begun to appear.
From the CasinoMeister.com website a la Google's number two rank:
Grand Prive - reneged affiliate deal
Grand Privé - Bad Casino Practice - Rogue ... Earlier information that the Microgaming-powered Grand Prive online casino group is to depart the US market
CasinoMeister is perhaps the most revered of the online casino portals and it's one of the oldest, which helps it to achieve top search ranking.
Oh, and it gets way better.
CasinoAim's top search ranking for the Grand Prive Casinos claims on the Google search page that "Grand Prive Group has impeccable, internationally recognized credentials. They work exclusively with Viper software based casinos. Grand Prive Group offers ..."
Go to the CasinoAim website, however, and you get a message expected of any online casino affiliate who has just been screwed by one of their ad partners and deprived of promised "life time revenue".
Warning: Grand Prive Group of casinos is in blacklist, STAY AWAY from their casinos!
CasinoAim has every right to be pissed off. Our guess is that such a coveted search ranking drives in a few new customers a week and CasinoAim just got completely cut off.
As J. Todd points out in his latest YouTube video (which, if you haven't watched already, is absolutely hilarious), that Grand Prive Casino and Bella Vegas were offering a "life time 35 percent revenue for all new customers brought in by affiliates". He also provides the documented proof courtesy of Web archives.
What this typically means is that the affiliate ad partner receives 35 percent of whatever the online casino is generating from that player's losses. Get a 100 players in and we are talking thousands of dollars for an online casino affiliate per month. Even one "whale" betting thousands of dollars a week in the online casino can amount to huge revenue for these affiliate websites.
For the player who might be thinking "Should I really care that some guy is getting screwed by this online casino when he is benefitting from my losses?"
The answer is a resounding "Yes" - and we say this as a website that does not enter into such affiliate deals. The reason: If they are going to so blatantly screw their affiliate partners, don't think for a second the same won't happen with their customers/players.
The other issue players may be confronted with is that the software provider, Microgaming, may not want to deal with this group for much longer. It wouldn't surprise us to see Microgaming cut off the Grand Prive Casino group as Microgaming has one of the best names in the business.
If the folks from Grand Prive Online Casinos thinks that J. Todd is just some lunatic with a YouTube enabled video camera....they would be right. But this is a lunatic who has substantial clout in the online gambling community and Todd has made it a mission to continue denouncing the Grand Prive group until they do the right thing. Unfortunately, the folks from Grand Prive really do not have a clue.
Expect this to be one of the most talked about topics at the upcoming Casino Affiliate Convention in Amsterdam March 30-31, which is attended by just about every affiliate website and online casino group imaginable.
Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com
