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"Why is iGBAffiliates endorsing crooks?" asked CasinoMeister founder Bryan Bailey Friday via a Facebook post Friday.
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Bailey, quite possibly the first ever online casino watchdog, pointed to the magazine's promotion of Affiliate Edge, an affiliate company he deems to be "rogue". iGBAffiliates is highly regarded within the online casino affiliate community, organizing some of the industry's top conferences.
And Bailey appears only to be echoing the sentiments of fellow online gambling affiliates. Others were quick to support the notion via the private Facebook group.
"Disgusting!" one top affilate posted in response.
Still others have even produced videos dedicated to what they deem to be Affiliate Edge's "rogue" practices.
"Here are the douchebags if you have not seen them before," commented Dave from OnlineCasinoReview in his video while displaying photos of the site's two founders.
J. Todd of APCW hit them hard as well.
And it wasn't always this way, Bailey notes in his Rogue column from March 2017.
He writes:
Affiliate Edge in its prime was a true wonder – a real gem. It was headed by an operator who was simply awesome. I could always depend on him to do the right thing when it came to any player issue. He was fair, he was sharp, he was responsive and proactive, he always gave the player the benefit of the doubt, and I never had any hesitation that he was able to make well founded and thought-out decisions when it came to dealing with players. For years, I watched his casino group grow not only with new properties, but with employees that were/are in fact the best in the business:
Martyn Beacon – Affiliate Manager – winning of numerous industry awards to include Casinomeister’s Best Casino Affiliate Program 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015. It was Martyn and his apprentice Stephen Croft who were the reason this affiliate program was truly one of the best in the business.
G911 Podcast: Affiliategy Head Talks Tools to Becoming a Top Affiliate in Today's Climate (Listen Below)
A hostile takeover in late 2016 resulted in drastic changes at the company.
Bailey states that Aff Power appeared to have some control of the group moving foward.
You know – Affpower. The dodgiest – the most unethical casino group to rear its fugly head in years. The Affpower operators think it’s totally fine to steal software – act as if they run legitimate casinos, and detag players from affiliate webmasters’ accounts. Did I say detagging players?
iGBAffiliates has yet to comment on their relationship and prominent display of Affiliate Edge, but the online casino affiliate community is small and tightknit. iGBAffiliates relies on gaming affiliates to help make their events successful.
A momentary lapse in judgement, an oversight by a newbie in the marketing department, these are things that can be forgiven. It's doubtful, however, that iGBAffiliates can sustain the backlash should these endorsements continue. It could also be that a new group has taken control of Affiliate Edge.
When iGBAffiliates does respond (and we're pretty confident they will do so quickly), Gambling911 will provide an update on this developing story.
Update July 5 11:22 am ET - This got real ugly real fast as a number of affiliates immediately reached out to us via messenger claiming that their commissions were wiped out by Affiliate Edge practically overnight.
Update July 5 11:44 am ET - From ThePogg.com: "With multiple well respected affiliates raising concerns about the stats anomalies that have been seen when working with the Affiliate Edge program, alongside term changes at the time that support the belief that the negative practices these affiliates believed to be in occurrence were ongoing, ThePOGG.com considers this affiliate program to be extremely high risk to affiliates. We would hope that any and all significant entities within the industry would take into account all available information before considering whether to partner with, or more importantly encourage other affiliates to partner with, this program."
- Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
