Monday, April 09, 2007

The latest craze in the online gambling affiliate sector has been the
promotion of so-called "gift cards" or virtual Visas. That craze may be
short lived as some of these gift card providers have been notifying
affiliates that they will not permit their product to be advertised on
internet gambling-related websites. For affiliates, this serves as yet
another blow in an industry that for the past six months has grown
increasingly unstable. Many online gambling sites that once offered
lucrative affiliate programs to US-based portal sites have since left the
market. Only a handful of the "good" affiliate programs still exist. For
some affiliates it's been nothing but an uphill battle getting paid. "My
affiliate revenue has been cut by 75%," says one website owner. "It has
been a trying time I think for most people". We know of at least two online
gambling affiliates who recently suffered nervous breakdowns. "You have to
realize, some of these people went from making a cool six figure salary in
only a month's time to earning practically nothing at all." Gift cards
offered an exciting venture for online poker and casino affiliates since the
cards enjoyed a rather high acceptance rate at some internet gambling
websites and were relatively easy to obtain. Not to mention they were in
high demand. Joe Williams, a gambler from South Florida observed "Ever since
NETeller pulled out of the US market, I've noticed that our local Walgreens
cannot even keep these gift cards on their shelves." Whether there is a
correlation between these shortages and a high demand to bet at online poker
sites is not known, but gift cards certainly offered suffering affiliates a
means to recoup some losses during the first quarter of this year.