 |
|
The following series on "The Gone Gambling Story" as seen through the eyes of Greedygirl was printed in the Gone Gambling weekly newsletter during March and April of 2003. The purpose of this series is to give members a little more insight into how Gone Gambling came into being and how and why we run the site as we do.
Hopefully, this series will help to do away with many of the misguided notions we've heard over the years and will help our members to understand not only Gone Gambling, but this business we are so involved in.
This first week's instalment will show how Gone Gambling came to be. Curl up with a cup of coffee and enjoy the read!
Gone Gambling began its journey all the way back in April of 1998 - the embryonic days of online gaming. As a starting point, John Abbott (also known as "Suckwad," from time to time!) developed JT's System Shop, which was little more than a gaming systems site, that provided free information and sales of gaming books. JT's grew into Gone Gambling, a happy, yet somewhat unidentifiable gaming site. Members trickled in as the site began to develop. Advertisers began supporting us. GG was establishing a "nice" reputation, but it was clear that this was a site that had to define itself by doing things different than the hundreds of other online gambling portals on the 'net.
So What's So Different About Gone Gambling?
More than you can ever imagine! Aside from having an Onion representing a gambling site, Gone Gambling has taken some incredibly risky chances.
First off, Gone Gambling has gone against the norm by creating itself as a "straight advertising model." What this means, simply is that Gone Gambling receives NO commissions as payment from its sponsoring casinos. Instead, advertising is paid up front on a monthly or quarterly basis by all of our sponsors. The vast majority of online gaming portals work most often as "affiliates," meaning they receive a percentage of what the casino earns, based upon the deposits received from the visitors the portal sends. We'll have more on this in the instalments to come.
Another big difference with Gone Gambling is that most online gambling portals focus heavily on driving new players to a casino, with less emphasis on player loyalty. At Gone Gambling we're a bit backwards on this. Gone Gambling has established itself to be a major tool for casinos in creating player retention as well as converting "for free players" into "real players." This is not meant to say that Gone Gambling could exist by not sending new players to a casino - on the contrary. We still need to send new players to a casino (PARTICULARLY to the casinos who are not participating in our games!), however, for those casinos who are involved in our games, the focus tends to be on retention. Again, more on this to come!
Probably the most important factor, separating Gone Gambling from many sites is the fact that though it has grown, it has stayed personal. We have a giant workstaff of three full-time employees and one part-timer. There's Jeff, our wonderful tech-guy, who keeps things running, as well as creates the technology necessary to put new games in place. To even begin listing everything Jeff does would take days!
Then there's Debbee - Greedygirl. Deb handles anything relating to advertising and marketing. Not only does she bring sponsors to Gone Gambling and maintain the relationships with these sponsors, she also focuses on marketing Gone Gambling to the industry, as well as the general public. This includes creating partnerships with other sites, trade shows, etc.
Our part-timer is Chris. He's the guy that has created our wacky Onions, which have become so identifiable for Gone Gambling. He is the creative person we turn to for all of our design needs, including our games, advertising materials and anything that needs "a look." Chris would be the guy!
Finally, of course, there is John...'ol Suckwad. What DOESN'T John do??? There is the day to day administration of the site, which includes: reading hundreds (and replying!) of emails. Making site updates and changes. Creating the wonderful weekly newsletters and other Gone Gambling emails. Dreaming up the games and promotions that all the members enjoy so much. Far more "behind the scenes" stuff than one could ever imagine! And perhaps the most difficult task - DEALS with not only the members, but has to deal with Jeff, Deb and Chris!
So there you have it. This has been just a rough sketch of Gone Gambling. In the weeks to come, we'll go a bit more in-depth on some of the bigger issues we tackle on the site, be it with our members, our sponsors or even just outside elements.
In our first instalment (last week) of the Gone Gambling Story, a brief overview of our site was explained. With this instalment (and those to come) we'll shed in-depth light on how the online gaming industry works and how Gone Gambling approaches sponsorship, traffic, membership and other issues.
Affiliate Partnerships, CPA's, Straight Advertising, etc. - What's the Difference???
To understand HOW Gone Gambling makes its money, you first have to understand various advertising options:
AFFILIATE PARTNERSHIPS
This is the most widely used method of advertising currently being used by online casinos. In a nutshell, a webmaster visits a casino's website, signs up to be an "affiliate," and then simply adds links and banners to their portal. The casino will in turn pay the webmaster a percentage of the deposits made by new players (and then subsequent deposits) that the portal sends to the casino. Generally the percentage can be anywhere between 15 - 45% (although sometimes higher). While this may sound like a cash cow, there is a huge downside to these partnerships - should a player WIN, the webmaster will lose, just as the casino will. A win by the player will be deducted from the earnings of the webmaster, as this is a loss for the casino. In other words, only a losing player will make money for the Affiliates.
CPA's (Cost Per Acquisition's)
Simply put, the casino puts a value on each new player (acquisition). In a CPA deal, the casino will (generally) pre-pay the portal a set amount for each player the portal sends. CPA deals used to be much more prevalent, but due to several unscrupulous webmasters, who did not fulfil their promises and agreements (without returning un-earned fees), CPA deals are far less common, today.
STRAIGHT ADVERTISING
Straight advertising is pretty much as it sounds. The casino (or media company) will buy advertising on a website, which would include anything from banner ads to inclusion in a newsletter to a solo emailing. Whatever advertising options are available are at the webmasters discretion. This is the ONLY type of advertising Gone Gambling will take.
Why Straight Advertising For Gone Gambling? Simple. We've tried other models for advertising and it doesn't fit what we do.
We tried some Affiliate Partnerships, only to be paid LESS than what we were due. This was achieved by "shaving stats," meaning the Affiliate company involved would show us numbers which were far from accurate. It became an incredible waste of time to go back, pull records, state our case, argue, etc, just to get what was owed to us.
We've also tried CPA deals, however, we felt consistently "under the gun" to achieve RAPID results... and when the results were put forth, we had similar troubles in proving we HAD indeed performed. In one case we could and did prove we had sent 18 depositing players to the casino in just one week, but the casino came back with stats that showed only 4 depositing players. Yes, we caught them trying to cheat Gone Gambling.
Fortunately, Gone Gambling is one of the few sites on the 'net which has earned the "luxury" of being able to exist on straight advertising. For a media buyer or casino to enter into a pre-paid advertising agreement, both the trust and the reputation for quality MUST exist with the website involved. And MOST importantly, the website MUST deliver an ongoing stream of new players and repeat depositing players, if the portal is to ever see a continuing campaign by the casino. The surest way for Gone Gambling (or any paid advertising site) to die is to fail on a campaign. This is still a very small industry and as a result success is quietly kept under wraps, but failure is known industry-wide.
So now you understand a bit more about advertising online. Next week we'll explain "niche marketing," traffic and the Gone Gambling games and how this all fits together. If this seems a bit much, hang in there - it will all begin to make sense with each week's instalment!
In our first instalment of the Gone Gambling Story we looked at just how Gone Gambling came to be, and last week we discussed the different advertising options webmasters have available and the option which works best for Gone Gambling. This week we'll explain a bit about marketing, traffic and the games at Gone Gambling and how this all fits with our advertising sales.
Q: What does Casinomeister, WinnerOnline and Gone Gambling have in common?
A: Aside from being successful online gaming portals, there's very little in common.
...and that's the point! Casinomeister is known for being a "watchdog" site, with Bryan Bailey bringing "evil" casinos to light and rushing to the aid of players (AND casinos) who have been wronged. WinnerOnline keeps up with the industry's "news of the day," as well as offering some of the "liveliest" forum discussions pertaining to Internet gaming to be found. Gone Gambling, is an entertainment-driven site, focusing on online gaming, where we dish up plenty of fun, incentives and prizes for your gambling dollars.
In a nutshell, this means that each of the sites mentioned have found their "niche." Niche marketing is incredibly important in this highly-competitive industry. To be able to create a particular area of interest, for the very people you are trying to drive to your site, is top priority. If you can be the first to create this area of interest, you'll have a bit of an edge, but you'll also have to maintain that interest by branding (we'll explain this in a moment) and being the very best within your niche.
BRANDING
This is what makes a company identifiable. MacDonalds has its "Golden Arches," Nike has it's little "whoosh" logo, Cher needs no last name and well... Gone Gambling has its Onions!
Silly as the Onions may seem to some, they've become our calling card. Ask someone about Gone Gambling and they're likely to say, "you mean the Onion site?" That's what we wanted - something SO ridiculous it HAD to brand us! We could have easily done dice, cards or anything within this vein, but it's been done already... plenty! Onions on the other hand, are still very new to the online gaming world!
TRAFFIC
Nope, not the stuff you encounter on the highway. Traffic for a website means the difference between absolute success and complete failure. Traffic, in its purest form is the websites visitors.
Without getting too deep on this subject, Gone Gambling requires a certain "quality" traffic to keep the site successful and to continue offering the great bonuses and deals it's able to offer. The typical "surfer" will NOT work for Gone Gambling. We look for the visitor who will take the time to register for membership and will further take time to learn all we have available and will "use" Gone Gambling as something of a tool. The casual passer-by is no benefit to Gone Gambling - we need active, depositing gamblers.
SO HOW DO THE GG GAMES FIT IN WITH ALL THIS?
This is where things will start to get a bit clearer...
In creating a niche for itself, Gone Gambling had to create something of interest for its visitors, as well as something of value for its advertising base. For our members, the value of our games is obvious - make a minimal deposit into the casino(s) of your choice and you'll have a pretty clear shot of maximising that deposit by winning bonus deposits off our games... and have a great time in doing so!
For the casino, the value is a bit different. Generally, when a casino advertises on a website it is looking for the new player - the person who has never opened an account and deposited with the casino. We're happy to do our best to bring new players to a casino, but where we really excel is in providing player retention and loyalty for the advertising casino. Casinos spend an amazing amount of money internally to achieve this sort of player retention - Gone Gambling offers a practical, inexpensive solution for the casinos to achieve player loyalty.
BECOMING CLEARER?
Now that you have a few more pieces to this puzzle, you can begin to see just HOW we sell our advertising and WHY traffic is such an issue for Gone Gambling. Next week, we'll discuss how Gone Gambling is impacted by such factors as slow traffic, bonus abuse, fraud and "iffy" casinos.
In our first two instalments of the Gone Gambling Story we looked at just how Gone Gambling came to be, and we discussed the different advertising options webmasters have available (and which option which works best for Gone Gambling). Last week we explained a bit about marketing, traffic and the games at Gone Gambling and how this all fits with our advertising sales. This week, we'll get to the "Real Dirt," of how slow traffic, bonus abuse, fraud and "iffy" casinos affects the industry, and Gone Gambling, overall.
For those on the outside looking in, the assumption is that online casinos and popular sites must be making money, hand-over-fist. There are a few lucky (well-managed) casinos and websites doing so, but you'd be surprised how few are in that league and what a struggle it is to join the ranks of the "money-makers." The reasons for this are many and varied, however there are the "Big Four" in particular that affect Gone Gambling directly and negatively.
SLOW TRAFFIC
Traffic = visitors to Gone Gambling = an increased member base. Seems simple enough, right? Well, let's get a bit more specific...
Currently, we have nearly 6,000 members. Recently, through some deep analysis, we've found that about half of these members are actually opening new accounts and/or making monthly deposits into Gone Gambling sponsoring casinos. It's great for the casinos currently involved with Gone Gambling, however the numbers will not support bringing new casinos onto the site, nor will it allow for adding additional casinos into our games.
It's basic math, really. The casinos sponsoring Gone Gambling see that we have a member base of nearly 6,000. We have to bring results that would be consistent with a member base of 6,000. If we are simply meeting expectations (without exceeding them), bringing additional sponsors in could be detrimental to those casinos already sponsoring. We would run the risk of not performing up to a sponsor's expectations, with the eventuality of a failed campaign. One bad campaign is enough to spread word throughout the industry that Gone Gambling was not a good advertising option.
BONUS ABUSE
This topic has been debated and debated to death, but no matter which side of this debate you are on, two things are crystal clear - online casinos need to offer bonuses to stay competitive, and there are too many players who will abuse these bonuses.
There are many online gamblers who are playing for the sheer enjoyment of the experience. They'll deposit into a casino based upon a casino's reputation for fairness, customer service, reliability and the games available for playing. These players will rarely search out a casino based upon the bonuses being offered - instead, bonuses are looked at as exactly what they are... a bonus.
To the group of "bonus hunters/abusers," pretty much any bonus is worthwhile, regardless of the casino's reputation. These players will deposit the bare minimum in order to receive the bonus and will literally keep track of each and every quarter wagered, in an effort to realise a cash-in. To many bonus hunters/abusers, gambling is a "job," and not a leisure activity. The moment this player reaches the required playthrough, they will withdraw whatever is allowable. This player rarely has any intention of maintaining any sort of ongoing relationship or loyalty with ANY casino. It's a "take the money and run" mentality.
When Gone Gambling sends a player to a casino, the casino is looking for someone who will be a good, loyal, DEPOSITING player. Someone who will lose AND win in fair fashion. If Gone Gambling sends a disproportionate number of "bonus" players, our value is lessened, again, making Gone Gambling a poor advertising option for casinos. Not surprisingly, because of the very niche Gone Gambling carved for itself with our games (and the potential for winning bonuses on our site), we have to be incredibly mindful of bonus abuse.
FRAUD
This is a huge problem. Casinos experience it and yes, Gone Gambling does, as well.
On the casino side, the two worst forms of fraud are players signing up with multiple accounts (generally in an effort to scam for bonuses) and those who issue charge-backs.
Again, as bonus abuse was previously explained, it's easy to see why the player with multiple accounts is such a problem - not much to be said here.
Charge-backs continue to be the biggest thorn in the side of the casinos. Explaining charge-backs thoroughly is difficult, as the last thing we want is to inspire anyone to attempt this sort of activity. With this in mind, the easiest way to explain charge-backs is that a player disputes a credit card charge. That results in the casino not only losing the deposit, but in some cases they have already PAID the player on a win from that very deposit! Generally, there will also be a penalty and/or increased processing charges for the casino as a result of charge-backs. You can see how damaging this can be for an online casino.
There is another form of fraud that is exclusive to Gone Gambling. Every now and then, a member will try and "beat the system," either by signing up multiple memberships or trying to find holes in our games and exploiting these holes. We're quick to catch these idiots, however, no matter how many traps we continually devise to prevent this from happening, someone always comes along and finds a new way to defraud us. This creates a considerable cost for Gone Gambling, not to mention an incredible waste of our time in dealing with this. Ironically, when we contact the casinos regarding players we've caught, we generally find these players to be bonus abusers and fraudulent players! When these cheats are confronted, oddly enough, Gone Gambling becomes the "bad guys!" Go figure.
IFFY CASINOS
This is basically the flip-side of the coin for Gone Gambling. We've discussed slow traffic, bonus abusers and sleazy players, but what about when a casino is no better than these players???
Unfortunately, we've had a few of these casinos over the years. Each time we've had a good-casino-gone-bad, we've seen a shift in our members trust in Gone Gambling, itself. Trust in Gone Gambling by our members means EVERYTHING to GG - we realise without this trust, we won't have much of a membership left.
COMBATING THE "BIG FOUR" PROBLEMS
Now that Gone Gambling's biggest hurdles have been brought to your attention, how we deal with these items is what's important. Look forward to these answers in next week's newsletter!
Last week we looked at the "Big Four" hurdles Gone Gambling faces each and every day. This week we go into this a bit further by showing how we set about combating these issues.
SLOW TRAFFIC
You'd think that simply because Gone Gambling is a great site this would be enough to get new members visiting... were it only so simple! The sad truth is that the Internet is just such a huge environment with the thousands of other sites (within the online gambling arena) out there, and it's easy to get lost.
There was a time when search engines were the webmasters best friends. Unfortunately, some webmasters got "smart" and in an effort to divert the search engine results to their own site(s), began creating multiple "sites." These "sites" are not much more than a web page or two with little content other than casino banners and gambling keywords. These "sites" are then duplicated with only slight aesthetic variations and each carry a unique URL. Once these "sites" are up on the web, the webmaster will link one "site" to the next. It is not all that unusual for a single webmaster to now have over one hundred of these "sites," thereby watering down the search engine ranking's for great sites, such as Gone Gambling and the sites we support. As a result, Gone Gambling no longer relies much on search engines for our traffic.
Another way webmasters attempt to bring traffic to their sites is by buying the traffic, outright. A fee is paid to the traffic seller and by virtue of exit pages, pop-ups, pop-unders, etc., traffic is delivered to the buyer's sites. We've tried this in the past, but it has not been all that successful and certainly not worth the expense.
What we ARE doing to increase traffic is creative and varied. The most obvious is our email campaigns, strategically dropped into the email boxes of opt-in online gamblers. We do only a couple of these email campaigns each month, as we are highly sensitive where spam is concerned.
We've developed relationships with other ethical webmasters and have worked out cross-promotions with their sites. These promos are designed to circulate traffic throughout the sites involved, hopefully driving some new faces to Gone Gambling. We also have something wonderful "up our sleeves," which we can't tell you about... just yet! <grin>
Of course we always hope that our current membership enjoys the site well enough to refer their friends and family to GG.
BONUS ABUSE
Tricky stuff for a site like Gone Gambling, which offers so much value for such a small, monthly deposit. We're incredibly conscious of the potential for abuse through Gone Gambling and we keep in constant communication with our participating casinos.
For those of you who were already members with Gone Gambling through the past holiday season, you'll know that the Gone Gambling points were free-flowing. The casinos took quick notice and we had a tough few weeks, as a result. We were simply giving far too much away and we had to make adjustments or run the very real risk of losing SEVERAL sponsors. So, although there was quite a bit of commotion from our members, we tightened things up and have found a certain "comfort zone," for both the sponsors AND our members.
FRAUD
Gone Gambling has little tolerance where charge-backs are concerned. When a casino contacts GG, stating one of our members has charged-back, our first move is to contact the member and inquire as to the reason behind the action. In most cases, after more than one email has been sent by GG, the member does not bother to reply. In the few instances the member replies, the answers have been along the lines of, "I didn't want my husband/wife to know I was gambling online," or "I didn't win at the casino, so it was rigged," and other such nonsense. In either case, reply from the member or no reply, this immediately ends any membership with Gone Gambling. It's just that serious to us. The last thing GG wants to do is to send someone who will charge-back to any of our sponsoring casinos.
Gone Gambling has certainly had its share of "less-than-honest" members over the years. We've had everything from people signing up multiple memberships (in the hopes of earning additional bonuses), "robots" being used to get an advantage on our games, and other forms of cheating and/or theft that won't be discussed for obvious reasons. Our tech-guy Jeff spends all too much time creating new stops to prevent further incidents, at no small cost to Gone Gambling. No matter how many security stops are in place, however, some creep will slip through the cracks and will try to get over on Gone Gambling. We always catch them, but it is an unending problem we suffer with.
IFFY CASINOS
The best way Gone Gambling can combat "iffy casinos" is by not allowing them on the site to begin with. Every effort is made BEFORE even entering into a discussion with an interested casino to evaluate the casino's reputation and performance. If there is so much of a question in our minds about a particular casino, it's not even up for consideration.
As some of you witnessed, we had a couple of casinos go bad while sponsoring Gone Gambling - fortunately, we learned from those experiences and have not had any sort of similar incident in two years.
What members may not realise is that we keep an eye on our sponsors and if we get an inkling there may be a problem, we're quick to nip it in the bud. In some instances, this may mean ending our relationship with the casino, in the best interest of our members. Sometimes, it's enough for a casino to know it could lose it's valuable placement at GG, for the casino to "get its act together."
With this in mind, it must be emphatically stated that there are MANY reasons a casino may no longer be a Gone Gambling sponsor. It could be that the casino did not do well with our members, or there may be managerial and/or marketing changes, or many other factors. It is only the rare occasion where a casino is booted off GG, as we are so picky about the casinos we bring in, to begin with.
ONLY ONE MORE INSTALMENT TO GO!
Next week all the pieces to this puzzle will fit together. All this information you've been fed should begin to give you a better understanding of how and why we do things at Gone Gambling, as well as give you a glimpse of just how MUCH is involved with Gone Gambling.
Here it is, at last - the final instalment of the Gone Gambling story. Just to refresh your memory, here's a brief overview of what we've discussed each week:
Part 1 - How Gone Gambling came to be and what exactly John, Jeff, Greedygirl (Debbee) and Chris do for the site.
Part 2 - We deciphered the difference between Affiliate, CPA and Straight Advertising, and why Gone Gambling uses the Straight Advertising approach.
Part 3 - This instalment related to our marketing of Gone Gambling. Included in this was "niche marketing," branding and traffic.
Part 4 - Here we discussed the "Big Four" hurdles Gone Gambling faces on an ongoing basis. The "Big Four" are: Slow traffic, bonus abuse, fraud and "iffy casinos."
Part 5 - Gone Gambling's practical approach to combating the "Big Four" hurdles.
So what does Gone Gambling have planned for the future?
Plenty!
To start with, look forward to a new and improved chatroom with features geared to a more enjoyable chat experience. We hope to have this new chatroom live within a few weeks.
There will be some new games brought to the site and additional casinos being brought into both the new and established games. We will also be introducing a reward program designed specifically for our larger casino depositors.
Gone Gambling has always taken pride in the fact that we work hard to do the "right thing" where our members and sponsoring casinos are concerned. We currently support a handful of other webmasters who do business similarly. We are in the midst of developing a couple of programs which will bring focus on more great webmasters and their sites. This will be done in such a way as to involve our members (and visitors) and will bring additional rewards and bonuses for everyone!
Of course, we're being a bit coy by only giving a "taste" of what's to come... but that's the idea!
As you can see, we've got quite a bit on our plate right now. All this "new stuff" is being put together while tending to our day-to-day tasks (which is plentiful) and preparing for two upcoming conferences.
Every step taken at Gone Gambling is calculated and geared to ensure success for the site, positive results for our sponsoring casinos, an enjoyable time for our members, and with a keen eye on the future for the online gaming industry.
Now that you've seen a glimpse of Gone Gambling "behind the scenes," hopefully you can understand a bit better how and why we do the things we do.
Drawn every 5 mins.
Drawn every 15 mins.
fslplayer8
lmoore
Bidder saled
