The new bet365 affiliates regulation are killing the affiliate business

**Trifonoff** · 15 October 2017, 8:19 am

I received the following instruction from my aff manager: "You will need to remove all of your own bet365 reviews and replace with this promotional text only." regarding their so called "compliance" policy.

Well, there are two big issues with it:

1. The ethical one: affiliate reviews are the core of the value added service our industry generates. Explaining to the customers the advantages and the disadvantages of a given operator is what makes us useful and what generates trust in our platforms. Changing a neutral review from us with their promotional texts would be misleading to our visitors and would be unfair competition to the other operators we work with.

2. The legal one: their promotional texts (I comment only on Bulgarian ones as I didn't check the other languages) do not pass the compliance guide from Bulgarian Gambling Commission. They have pushing expressions as "Open account today", "Earn more from your bets" and descriptions as "wonderful", "fantastic" and so on. My texts (and I believe it is a common standard in the industry) are strictly informational. Now they ask of me to either break our national compliance guide or theirs.

And this come from a company which floods the web with their pop-unders coming from all kind of sites all the time.

**MJM** · 15 October 2017, 1:19 pm

I’m completely confused on compliance as well and not getting any communication or replies to questions. Doesn’t help I’ll be on vacation starting the 19th!

**Sherlock** · 15 October 2017, 1:38 pm

There is even a third reason: Google compliance

I remember years ago I tested some travel affiliate landing pages. I was lazy and I was doing it in language I am not fluent in. So I just took some promo materials and created a landing page 100% from the content provided by affiliate program (= exactly what OP says we should do now).

Then I tried to pay adsense to the landing page. For my great surprise the page made some net profit, but soon Google wrote to me that the page is with too narrow with content and they are banning it, because it is just funneling users to merchant. They use some term I forgot, because I do not do CPC.

Okay. But this was years before all the SERP changes and the unfamous SEO thin content upgrade. I think the affiliate pages that will be made just from materials from bet365 will be quickly banned by Google a god knows if this does not affect the whole domain.

I think this must be some kind of misunderstanding.

**Malikbhai** · 15 October 2017, 11:46 pm

Could be that Bet365 is so synonymous with sports betting, that they do not need online affiliates any more.

And this is just a long term strategy to reduce their affiliate work load. I don't know but this is not good.

**Progger** · 16 October 2017, 12:01 am

Do I understand this in the right manner, every affiliate have to use the same text,content ?!

**Trifonoff** · 16 October 2017, 3:35 am

Originally Posted by Progger

Do I understand this in the right manner, every affiliate have to use the same text,content ?!

Short answer: yes.

**Trifonoff** · 16 October 2017, 3:47 am

Originally Posted by Sherlock

There is even a third reason: Google compliance

...

Okay. But this was years before all the SERP changes and the unfamous SEO thin content upgrade. I think the affiliate pages that will be made just from materials from bet365 will be quickly banned by Google a god knows if this does not affect the whole domain.

I think this must be some kind of misunderstanding.

For sure it will effect negatively the SEO. I am quite sure they will push all their small and medium size affiliates to comply with it under the threat of their accounts being closed and of course they will allow their big affiliates to keep their original contents.

**Moonlight Cat** · 16 October 2017, 7:09 am

Originally Posted by Trifonoff

Short answer: yes.

https://www.dietistaktuellt.com/forum/affiliate...ry-242120.html

**RacingJim** · 16 October 2017, 10:12 am

I saw the wording of the recent emails from Bet365 and must admit I am as alarmed as the topic poster.

They are basically saying we all have to use the same text or 'approved texts'. It's all very alarming.

The one basic thing this breaks above all else, will be the 'UNIQUE CONTENT' for Google and all other search engines. Our content must be UNIQUE and it must ADD VALUE.

**casius14** · 16 October 2017, 10:14 am

In an email from my affiliate manager today, this was a pretty alarming extract...

"If you prefer to remove promotion of bet365 from your site then this is fine."

It's obviously a difficult time for the AM, but for them to basically turn round and not be bothered if we promote them or not is pretty alarming.

**Gosu** · 16 October 2017, 11:16 am

Not really? Seriously???! And all that by bet365, the program we all appreciated sooo much!!!

Originally Posted by casius14

In an email from my affiliate manager today, this was a pretty alarming extract...

"If you prefer to remove promotion of bet365 from your site then this is fine."

It's obviously a difficult time for the AM, but for them to basically turn round and not be bothered if we promote them or not is pretty alarming.

**Sherlock** · 16 October 2017, 11:24 am

On the other side the push to them must be pretty high and they do not intend to **** with us as the others.

We should fill the reviews by "Censored by UKGC, thanks to Guardian."

A couple of years ago I thought I'd found freedom, the dream job with no real boss. Now I feel like all of a sudden the game changed, I now have a boss, not only that but he decided to start throwing his weight around.

No one is his own boss. It is sadly normal. We just had the luck that we could enjoy the illusion of freedom or temporary freedom with the onset of the internet. Why? Because we were looking for it. One really has to fight for it again and again.

**MJM** · 16 October 2017, 12:46 pm

I really doubt censorship is the intent here, I believe they just want to approve everything we are doing in order to avoid fines by the ASA/UKGC but I’m certainly in the dark about what exactly to do.

**Sherlock** · 16 October 2017, 1:42 pm

Sorry for offtopic. In broader sense, I believe it is about censorship. Of course I am not talking about some intention of Bet365.

The leftist campaigns for common good are nothing else then fencing the freedom of expression. That said, I actually can understand it. People are stupid. People are weak. They like to escape the reality. Some people drink, some do drugs, some cheat, some gamble. People do sins, that in long term destroy them, but the sins provide a short term relief. What destroys people destroys society. Any society that wanted to stay as coherent society always fought it. The problem with internet is that the barriers to sins are very low. Life for everyone is more stressful. So people want more relief. The more relief causes more harm. Therefore the restriction is tougher. The primary restriction is censorship, because it is much cheaper than deep work with human souls (which also has drawbacks for society, because people then seek freedom). The censorship is accelerating everywhere. In long term it will just trigger counterstrike. But the free capitalism on fiat-powered internet is already crippled.

In the next step of censorship even people will be forced to add T&C in their tweets about what they bet on or something like that. The situation is severe, because bet365 were always fighting against censorship. They were always #1 of grey markets. It is pitiful that they left the position to people like 1xbet.

**casius14** · 16 October 2017, 5:07 pm

Originally Posted by MJM

I really doubt censorship is the intent here, I believe they just want to approve everything we are doing in order to avoid fines by the ASA/UKGC but I’m certainly in the dark about what exactly to do.

Yeah I agree with this. I think in time things will calm down once they have rid of all the non-compliant sites. I also think that eventually they will green light the majority of copy that you highlight through your affiliate manger. But, I can't see this being done any time soon and it will have to be bang on the money in terms of what you write.

**Trifonoff** · 17 October 2017, 8:03 am

Originally Posted by MJM

I really doubt censorship is the intent here, I believe they just want to approve everything we are doing in order to avoid fines by the ASA/UKGC but I’m certainly in the dark about what exactly to do.

I don't say it is a censorship I say it is destroying the affiliate business as we know it. Sport portals and other news platforms will not have any issue with it.

**iso2009** · 17 October 2017, 9:33 am

My AM said that they will begin reviewing other ads sometimes in the future and I sure they will, but it will take a lot of time. I do not expect mine to be reviewed or approved this year.

However, from their point of view and with the new regulations, here's the thing:

They have 10-20 big sites which promote bet365 and are easy to review. I would even say 5 sites (just looking in google), but again I am not sure about the traffic of others. So, easy to approve, right? That's why the big guys don't even bother to change anything. They are already approved.
Because they send at least 80% of the best affiliate traffic to bet365.

If you're a small/medium affiliate, you'll have to wait. Which is ok with me, I would do the same if I was Bet365. Of course I don't like it, but I understand it.

Telling one affiliate to "pull the links" is something that you should not do. It means they don't really care (at this moment) about the others. A thing which I also understand. But it worries me.

We'll see if they will really start reviewing/approving other ads, texts or any other promo material or the small ones will be forced to use only their ads. If so, they will lose 20% of the affiliate traffic, in the worst case scenario. Big deal.

In the end, it's all about the numbers. It was simply too beautiful to go on forever

**moizez** · 17 October 2017, 12:02 pm

And because of the UKGC non UK affiliates must complain with this **** too. My AM also told me to remove content "No content is better than wrong/non approved content, is what I’m told." Not better for me.

"Any ‘factual?information about bet365, any information you have written about our promotions ?it all needs to go please as it’s not compliant."

As you no doubt have guessed (xD) my english is poor, so let me ask you a question:

Is this last sentence saying that I have to remove a post with my opinion about bet365?

**xecutable** · 17 October 2017, 12:04 pm

Where are you pulling these % from?

Response time on this issue = slow. YES
Quite the ordering tone from bet365. YES

No carrying about small/medium affiliates. NO. bet365 have always bothered with every single affiliate. In fact years ago, they bothered to pay a guy who had 43 eur commission, by registering through himself without a website. He did not meet the 5 depositing players rule, the 50 eur payout rule, to have a website rule and to NOT register from your own links.

I'm as frustrated as the next guy with the slow communication and stuff, but let's not make up numbers.

**Gosu** · 17 October 2017, 12:08 pm

Sorry xecutable but no matter how they used to behave and what compliance rules there are to follow - the TONE they are using now is still no matter what definitely not something you could even consider calling as care - they just dont give a f*** for the time being. And whats worse... Even if they dont care for whatever reason, still that tone is highly unprofessional.

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