Unibet Cutting Ties With Affiliates

Unibet has become the latest online gambling firm to cut off long time affiliates, and we are hearing more companies are following suit, both in the USA and abroad.

Atanas Tanev of Bulgarian online gambling affiliate company Websta referred to Unibet's actions as "deceptive practices". 

Websta has been part of the online gambling affiliate industry since 2016.

Regular readers of the Gambling911.com website will recall that Unibet exited the U.S. regulated market recently, leaving much of their employees in the dark.

Tanev's post on LinkedIn read as follows:

Warning to All Affiliates! Beware of Kindred Group plc / Unibet's Deceptive Practices

We have been loyal affiliates of Kindred Group / Unibet since 2015, but our recent experience has been nothing short of a nightmare.

Our account was suspended without any warning or information. No emails, no notifications—nothing.

After extensive efforts to contact their team via email, LinkedIn and Skype, we finally received a response citing suspension: "Due to our internal regulations and market closure policies, which are designed to ensure compliance and maintain the integrity of our operations."

This is absolutely unacceptable and misleading!

These so-called "internal regulations and market closure policies" have nothing to do with the country in which our company is registered (in our case - Bulgaria). Kindred Group operates and advertises in countries where we fully comply with their conditions. This excuse is a blatant attempt to mask their true intentions.

After my previous post today, many other affiliate partners messaged me about this weird situation. I've been told that Kindred Group is reducing investments in some GEOs because they're not making good profits. To cover this, they're cutting affiliates, fabricating artificial reasons, and using the excuse of your business's geographical location to justify their actions.

This is not just about our account. It's about the deceitful practices that could impact all affiliates.

If you're an affiliate with Kindred Group / Unibet, be warned. They could arbitrarily suspend your account under vague pretences at any time.

We demand transparency, fairness, and respect for all affiliates who have worked hard to promote their brand. This kind of treatment is utterly disappointing and unprofessional.

Playing Devil's advocate, sometimes affiliates get operators in trouble (witness what transpired recently with Bovada in Michigan where an affiliate used Google maps to make it appear as if Bovada's casino was based there).  Don't get us started with all those bonus codes popping up on Google News!

In the case of Websta, Tanev and his crew do have a strong networking presence on LinkedIn and quite a few of them chimed in to express their outrage over the Unibet move.

"This is insane," one person wrote.

Andres Tiemann expressed his frustration.

"If this here is true, it just proofs again, that some the big operators here in Malta playing a bad game and that they damage the business for their employees as such for their partners. It happened many times before, that companies either make their stuff redundant without any info before, or that they damage their partners and the whole sector itself. This is ridiculous and has to change. I have been working for big and small operators, I have to say that the smaller brands and companies I have worked for always have been trustworthy, provide excellent support, sticked (sic) to their promises and always paid their Affiliates. At some point you could get the feeling that the big operators already made their money throughout the years and give a damn, if they damaged their reputation, as they made their money already. This is very sad to see how things are changing, and not for the better. All these monthly Affiliate conferences where everybody hyped each other how cool everything is, is just the clown face, what goes in within the industry for real, you get to know when you see posts like these. I don’t know about this case here, but things like this happend (sic) also in the past with other operators. Super sad!"

But apparently the practice is nothing new.

Oskar Kallenbach wrote: "Affiliates promoting them after their last mass closure did not learn much. Do not go back to programs behaving this way. It will reinforce a negative behavior and spread across the industry."

Another individual commented that W88 suffered the same fate last year and lost more than $500,000. 

Tanev elaborated further that operating from Bulgaria should not be a factor in their decision making process.

"We are not required to hold a license, except in specific countries like the United States and Romania where affiliate licenses are mandated. We operate exclusively in countries where affiliate partners are not required to have a license, ensuring compliance with local regulations. For instance, you could be registered in Denmark and promote brands that are permitted in Canada but do not have licenses in Denmark. This scenario does not render you non-compliant."

And in the United States, DraftKings and FanDuel are doing the same.  If you are a small affiliate who thought you'd be doing right severing ties with all those lucrative offshore deals, better think again.

One affiliate, who wished to remain unidentified, tells Gambling911.com "DraftKings has been cutting small affiliates for a couple of months, myself included."

This comes after many states require licensing fees to set up as a gaming affiliate.

"Really they all are," this affiliate added.  "FanDuel does a 'culling' - their words - every year.  We made it through those so far.  If you aren't doing massive numbers they don't want to bother."

Of course this comes after you've already sent these companies X amount of customers and were promised X amount of money monthly, often a percentage of a player's losses (no different than how an operator makes money).  Online gambling affiliates over the last 20 years have been known to make millions of dollars a year. 

John Wright of StatsDrone touched upon this topic back in April.

Will affiliate networks be a safe haven for smaller affiliates to thrive?

Wright writes:

"With companies like Betsson closing affiliate accounts which likely is doing this to the smaller affiliates, it only gives more power to the larger affiliates where operators almost cannot afford to close anything.

"The irony of this activity of well established operators closing accounts of affiliates is it gives more power to the giant affiliate groups and it encourages the smaller affiliates to not bother with regulated markets."