Betfair Are Not Fair

Loquax has been involved in online gambling since 2003/4. In that time we've had our own white labels with the likes of Jackpotjoy, Dragonfish, Cozy Games and Jumpman. We've also had affiliate partnerships with many brands too including Gala, Foxy, Tombola, Paddy Power, Bet365 and others. It's safe to say we've had a successful time in this industry (at least by our own standards) and we've seen many changes. As old-timers we've seen business relationships come and go. Skybet dumped all their affiliates in 2017 thereby holding onto revshare that should have been paid to affiliates on lifetime deals. Foxy, Heart and many others have chopped and changed platforms so as to start affiliate partnerships from ground zero. Bet365 have decided they can't work with small affiliates under some jumped up compliance nonsense. Despite this we've managed to keep calm and carry on - and then came Betfair.

Why Are We Sore At Betfair

On June 1st 2022 Betfair suspended our affiliate relationship. This was done with no notice at all despite their terms and conditions stating otherwise: "Betfair may suspend or terminate this Agreement at its discretion immediately upon notice if it considers that you are for any reason unsuitable to be an affiliate". Had we done anything to be regarded as unsuitable? No and if there was an issue we'd have fixed it. So we had no notice. It then took over 20 days to illicit any kind of sense from the Betfair Affiliate Management team. Even now their response is questionable and lacked any level of sincerity. We actually had to ask for an apology regarding the no notice. Whilst all this is annoying what annoys us more is that Betfair aren't paying us earnings from May 2022 when we weren't suspended. So money we've earnt under contract is being withheld. It's not a lot of cash but it's the principle!

Why Not Just Let It Go?

Strangely Betfair have never been one of our biggest earners. In fact when we doing pretty well they were one of the worse performing platforms. The amount we believe they owe us is nominal but it's still our legitimately earnt revenue. The way they're acting is like letting an employee go without telling them until the last possible moment and then holding back their last month's pay as some kind of penalty. That's just not fair is it? However there's an extra aspect to this too. Although Betfair have suspended us an affiliate their sister brand, Paddy Power, have not. But we've decided to pull links from Paddy Power because they're managed by the same affiliate team. That's the same team that thinks suspending affiliates without notice, not replying to them, fobbing them off with wishy washy excuses and not paying them their revshare is a fine way to act. How can we as a company promote Paddy Power to visitors knowing that at any time we may have our partnership ended and lose income? How can we tell players that these sites are great for honesty and integrity when they're simply not?

And It's Not Just Us!

The above could be taken as simply as a disgruntled ex-affiliate getting the hump and you'd be perfectly correct. But this isn't new for Betfair and Paddy Power's affiliate set-up. On various threads on GPWA it's the same story: Paddy Power Betfair Suspended My Account, Betfair Paddy Power Closing Affiliate Accounts and Paddy Power Betfair Affiliate Program Not So Friendly. Dig deeper and the same thing is highlighted on Affiliate Guard Dog with some threads dating back a few years whilst Betfair Paddy Power Are Closing Accounts Again is more recent. Of course business relationships do come to a conclusion at some time, but there are ways and means of acting which can make the process better and/or fairer. Had Betfair been active in helping us improve our partnership in the previous 12 months, had given us fair notice, offered an opportunity to discuss their concerns and voice our own and they paid us then this page wouldn't exist.

Honest & Clarity

Since 2017 the gambling industry has been all about compliance. That's making sure players have clear and concise information with respect to promotions, offers etc. It's why you see terms and conditions apply pretty much on everything. Gambling operators bang on about compliance for good reason. If The UKGC pulls them up on failings then they can be fined and/or lose their license. It's a big thing and it's hammered home to affiliates at every turn. As a company we like to make sure we're compliant and despite limited resources do an excellent job. We do make mistakes but have never been dropped by a program for not being compliant? And yet when it comes down to the operator and affiliate relationship there's no such body like The UKGC keeping things honest, clear and compliant. The contracts we accept with operators are disregarded and ignored whilst all the time the likes of Betfair extoll their virtues of being honest gambling operators.

The Demise Of The Affiliate Industry

As veterans of affiliate marketing it's quite possible that our time in the industry is in it's latter years. We're fortunate to be in an OK position and losing affililate partners just limits the time we have left. But there are implications when the likes of Bet365, Paddy Power and Betfair drop smaller affiliates. For us we're going to be dropping two sites simply as we can't keep them going nor risk further investment in them. We do have some fallback but many others may not. At this current time big operators are making it pretty much impossible for new affiliates to get involved in the industry. This means the big affiliates get bigger and everyone else gets squeezed out. That isn't healthy and smacks of limiting competition. it does make you wonder whether big affiliates have some influence on some of these questionable decisions made by affiliate teams. All in all it just adds further fuel to the argument that the bingo affiluate industry in The UK is all but dead.

Ulterior Motives

As affiliates it's possible to earn revenue in a number of ways but typically the options are CPA (cost per acquisition) and Revshare. The former is a one off fixed fee for a player whilst the latter means affiliates share in any profits made by the activity of a player. Our deal with Betfair was revshare. Interestingly though any new partners signing up with Betfair or Paddy Power can only choose CPA or Ad Spend, which gives you the chance to earn from brand exposure. Revshare isn't an option! So does this mean that the underlying reason for suspending affiliates is simply to move away from paying out revshare? Simply a cost-cutting exercise so that the affiliate management team can show their bosses some nice pretty graphs about how much money they've saved whilst acting unscrupulously, underhandedly and making sure affilates aren't paid what is due to them.

In Conclusion

If you're a current Betfair or Paddy Power affiliate reading the above then our advice would be to consider carefully what you do going forward. We never thought we'd be in this situation and always thought we were dealing with a fair company. We were wrong. If you're an ex-affiliate of these companies then why not let us know your experiences - even better post them on your website. Hopefully one or two players also read this - do you want to spend your hard earned cash with an operator that lacks honesty and integrity? We'd think not! Of course we'd like to think that folks from Flutter Entertainment, Betfair, Paddy Power and Skybet will discover this essay by a disgruntled affiliate from Llanelli. You may think we're being over dramatic or that it's only a few quid. However your affiliate management team are treating people badly and that reflects on the company. You should go to them, learn how affiliates are being treated and resolve the issues. That means better communications, no outstanding payments to affiliates and acting with at least a modicum of integrity.

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