First of all, what is an affiliate? It is a person or a company, that recommends casinos or any other products online for their readers. The whole industry is called affiliation. Basically almost every online magazine do some kind of affiliation. You can recognize that by links product pages, usually inside an article.
You might not always even realize that you are reading an affiliate site which might not always be a good thing, because that means you trust the site which you reading. That gives a lot of responsibility for the admins, as they can basically recommend anything for their readers, whether it is good or bad for them.
Basically, good affiliation is very easy to recognize. If the website never says a bad word about any product, it probably means that those guys are easy to buy. They pretty much recommend and sell everything for the right price. And that will not be a good thing for the readers, as you would never find out everything about the product. Basically, they might sell you sh*t and you wouldn´t even know it. That is called bad affiliation and that is something that should be vanished from the online world. Well, it should be wiped out from the world of advertising.
Good affiliation is honest affiliation. If you are reading a review of a product, even though the product is known to be from heaven aka perfect, the review still lists some cons of that product. That is good affiliation. It is honest. The review tells that a certain product might not be good for some people for certain readers.
Basically all the casino sites, even gamblingbulldog.com is an affiliate site. If you were not aware of that before, now you are.
The word affiliation is like a curse word to many, but personally I see it as a better version of advertising. That is of course, if you are reading an honest site. But think about it. If a business wants to buy a spot on the newspaper, they can just do that and nobody is going to question that. They can put the advertisement they want and that´s it. There is no review or anything and basically the business itself is just praising their own product. How is that for honesty?
Affiliation is better, because it is 3rd party people, who like the product, advertising it because they have good experience of it. That is much better recommendation than full page advert on the Sunday Times.
The reason I am talking about this is because gambling affiliation has been in a terrible situation in the past. Many affiliates have been selling any casino just to get money and players have ended up on sites they shouldn´t have. Nowadays UKGC has put up a lot rules for affiliates which is a good thing. Well, not directly, since the rules are for casinos who now have to monitor the sites they are being advertised. That means that the brands will no longer let the bad guys advertise them as this might put them in trouble.
This is another milestone in cleaning the casino industry and making it transparent and trustworthy. Personally I think is good. Nowadays showing the significant terms and conditions is a must and it is doing the job. You can´t really say a site is good, while at the same time you have to show their bad terms listed.
Now what I hope myself, that the situation stays like this and won´t just change. Because we all know where too much regulations can lead. It just creates another black market, which is what we were running away from in the first place when UKGC started to make new plans and rules.
But, this is just my opinion. What about you? What is good affiliation for you and do you recognize when you are reading an affiliate site?
