The Importance of Being Honest

A controversial unilateral move by 888 has been exposed and made public recently by Affiliate Guard Dog and APCW, respectively. Guard Dog, which is a website dedicated to protecting affiliates interests, has reported on July 7 that 888 has changed the terms and conditions on their site, affecting their agreement with webmasters.

APCW have reported on the situation in a video aired on July 18. A shorter Special Report aired on July 21 appears on this page.

It was only two weeks after the initial report, on July 21, that 888 have responded to the report. Even after 2 weeks of silence, the response from the online casino giant does not please everybody. We take a closer look.

The situation
It took a watch dog - Affiliate Guard Dog - to discover that 888.com has changed its terms and conditions. The changes, which drastically affect the relations between the operator of Casino on Net and Pacific Poker and affiliates who partner with it, was never reported by 888.

Perhaps hiding the change, and certainly upsetting affiliates at the very least, 888 did not as much as send an email to their partners.

The changes to the terms and conditions include, at core, a change in commissions. From up to 40% revenue share, webmasters will enjoy only 10% commissions, if a one new client per month requirement is not met. In the words of J Todd of APCW, this change "borders on theft."

The response
As mentioned above, only on July 21 did 888 respond. In their response they stated that the changes are not to be retroactive. But this failed to please many in the industry.

Not only did their previous action upset them, 888 refused to put this clarification in writing. Naturally, this was not convincing enough for webmasters, who by and large suspect it to be mere damage control, not a change of course.

The bottom line , for now
Players and webmasters largely agree that 888 do operate some of the finest websites on the market. Online Casino Reports has even included a review of Casino on Net , saying much the same.

Furthermore, 888 has proven in the past year that the company, and online gambling as a whole are a viable business.

But clearly there is a fair way of doing business. This way should apply to the world of online gambling too. As it seems now, casino affiliates are not convinced that 888 have kept with this fair practice standards.

In repairing the loss of trust between affiliates and 888, there are a few things to keep in mind:

The industry guard dogs have done a good job in airing the situation and with quite an effect.

These guard dogs are not the issue at hand, however.

Lastly, this case, an exception by all means, shows that the industry is usually an honest environment. We should make sure it remains such, for all parties involved.