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Newsletter - May 8, 2015

GreedyGirl

Pickled Onion
GONEGAMBLING NEWSLETTER!

Dear ,

It's not often I write 'serious' newsletters, but this one is definitely serious. This is a continuation of the last newsletter, where I began discussing the 'State of GoneGambling'. In that newsletter, I wrote about GoneGambling's traffic, bits about member participation (mostly with our casinos), the truth about casino profits, what our sponsoring casinos are dealing with and how this impacts our members. If you haven't already read that newsletter, I'd suggest before reading this one, you check it out, here.

After reading the last newsletter, you should now have a better understanding of the reality of casino profits and why casinos are not nearly as anxious to hand out bonuses, it's time to weigh in on what makes GoneGambling tick.

Until recently, GoneGambling income was solely based upon monthly, paid media buys. What this means is that we were not engaging in affiliate deals (more on this in a moment), but only a flat-fee was paid by our sponsors each month. When that pool of potential new sponsors/advertisers dried up (as discussed in the last newsletter), the burden to our existing sponsors to pick up the tab on so many bonuses became too great and several of our sponsors were no longer profitable. In some cases, some of our sponsors were actually losing money.

So what to do? Should GoneGambling change that monthly minimum deposit requirement for bonuses? Instinct dictates that this won't do well and for the time being we won't be going down this path (yes, you can breathe a sigh of relief!). We could tighten up the games, so as not to issue as many bonuses, but I can hear the angry mobs screaming. Not much of an option.

What we HAVE had to do, is look at how we approach our revenue stream, being mindful of protecting our existing sponsors bottom lines, what is in our members best interests and of course, making certain GoneGambling remains viable. In order to achieve all of these points, we made the difficult decision to begin accepting affiliate deals (whereby GoneGambling does not receive a flat fee-instead, we receive a percentage of player deposits) and CPA deals (Cost Per Acquisition, which means we receive a fee for each new depositing player we deliver).

These sort of deals are how most portals operate with-there are very, very few sites engaging in the paid media buy model these days. GoneGambling held off going down this road for years, but as I've said so many times already, times have really changed.

What hasn't changed is our need to keep our sponsors AND GoneGambling profitable and at the same time, keep our members happy.

(Continued, below)


TOURNAMENT NEWS

Last weekend's Tournament Triathlon was a true nail-biter. For the first time in a very long time, it looked as if we had a real contender to win that giant Bounty! Jimebear came SO close and it had the guys at iNetBet on edge...and the GoneGambling banker-dude shaking in his boots! Sadly for jimebear, he was close, but no Bounty-cigar.

The good news for everyone is that the June Tournament Triathlon isn't long off and that Bounty will be rising to 6.6 MILLION GG's and $660 in iNetBet casino cash!

For this weekend, no Triathlon, but a couple of great Tournaments!

EARTHQUAKE Tournament for Individuals - begins Friday, 2AM, EDT
MOON ROCKET Team Tournament - begins Saturday, 2AM, EDT

Each Tournament runs three days, so plenty of time to get in on the action!

Our next Tournament Triathlon will begin Friday, June 5th-mark your calendar!


STATE OF GONEGAMBLING - GIFTING...

Recently, there was a thread in the forum, ruffling some members' feathers. This thread was mostly about how many new Gifting threads were showing in the 'latest post' section on the homepage of the forum and how it was burying non-Gifting posts. I agreed with the original poster on this and I also mentioned my love/hate of Gifting.

This love/hate relationship with the Gifting of GG's is nothing new, and historically, it dates back to the early days of GoneGambling. John Abbott, the original owner and genius who created GoneGambling, came up with the idea of Gifting, as a way to circulate GG's through the membership, so as to spread the wealth, so to speak. It was a great idea (in theory), however, it became problematic on many levels.

We've always had issues of members 'targeting' our GG-wealthy members and at times we've had catty, nastiness spill over as a result. This hasn't been such a big issue lately, but particularly in the early days of Gifting, it was ugly.

The biggest problem with Gifting is the larger issue at hand: Non-depositing members.

GoneGambling has always had an open-door policy, happily accepting members who for whatever reason don't deposit into our sponsoring or advertising casinos. We realize that GoneGambling is a community. Some members may not have the means to deposit...some members may not want to participate with the sponsors and/or advertisers we have on board...some members may be located in online gambling-restricted areas. Whatever the reason, there ARE plenty of non-depositing members.

The problem here is that non-depositing members do nothing to contribute to GoneGambling's bottom line. For the most part, these are also the members requesting gifts on a regular basis.

GG's have always been pretty much readily available to any member who wants/needs them: Participating in chat is one way to quickly amass GG's. The Auction Room is another way, but this means a member will have to deposit (pretty much what we want, er, NEED our members to do!), or take part in whatever deals we may be running. Hell-I have depositing members contacting me all the time asking me to 'create a deal' for them so they can garner some GG's. And I'm always happy to do so. I also get non-depositing members emailing me asking/begging for GG's. I tend to ignore those requests.

What I'm really getting at here, is so long as there is Gifting, the non-depositing members have no incentive to ever make a deposit into any of our casinos. It's becoming more and more difficult to justify Gifting in its current form.

(Continued, below)


CASINO OF THE WEEK

There's no denying that the Club World Group of Casinos is as good as it gets. As major sponsors of GoneGambling, month after month, this group continues to prove to our members just how casinos should be run-professional, great customer service, generous promotions and above all, swift payments!

It's tough to pick just one of the group's casino's to spotlight, but we've chosen Aladdin's Gold to be our latest Casino of the Week. Aside from all the great stuff I've already mentioned, Aladdin's Gold has one of the most outstanding new player offers to be seen: 200% on ALL deposits made during the first seven days of opening your new account and making that first deposit! Yowza!

Now if that's now sweet enough, GoneGambling is gonna add plenty of sugar!

If you're opening a new account and depositing a minimum $50, we'll give you 10 Auction GetLucky's...without having to go through the Auction Room! And if you make a repeat deposit ($50 minimum), regardless of when you've opened your Aladdin's Gold account, we'll give you 25 Feature GetLucky's! And don't forget-Aladdin's Gold is available for Conversions, High Rollers and other GoneGambling bonuses!

To take part in these deals, please go to the Casino of the Week section of the forum for all the need-to-know details.


STATE OF GONEGAMBLING THE NEW FORUM

I know for some, bringing in the new forum format has been a welcome change...and for others, a source of frustration. It was a change that was necessary for GoneGambling on so many different levels: First and most importantly, we needed to make our forum as secure and safe as possible, warding off hacking and bots. It's been a problem for us for many months and this change gives us the best protection, going forward.

Next, our old forum was, well, old. It was proprietary software, written back in the early days of the site and it was completely lacking of any features. With this new forum, the world is pretty much our oyster and with time, members will learn to love this forum and all that can be utilized with it.

Last and HUGELY important is that we need to stir more interest and excitement back into GoneGambling. Where GoneGambling has always excelled is in our community and we need to build this community of diverse, interesting folks back up. With this forum and the help of our existing membership, we should be able to bring GoneGambling back to the thriving, flourishing community we've previously enjoyed.

I know for some of our members, this new forum may seem daunting at first. It really is not difficult to use, once you get the hang of it. You can always contact Deedeemoe, Bryan or me if you're having difficulties (by private message, email or by posting in the forum). Additionally, there is a comprehensive FAQ how-to page that you can pull up, which should answer pretty much any forum-use questions you may have.

I can't emphasize just how important this new forum is to the ultimate success of GoneGambling. Please, take some time to hang out and participate with this. You'll know you're helping GG grow and at the same time, get to know some of our fine members and hopefully, have a great time doing so!

(Continued, below)


MEMBER OF THE WEEK

She was M.I.A. for a while and I can honestly say I was incredibly excited to see the return of deemac80! Deemac is one of those members who will have you in stitches when she's in chat...always full of wit...and probably a few cocktails! All I can say is when deemac is around, GoneGambling is sure to be more fun and she certainly is deserving of the Member of the Week honors! Enjoy your bling, deemac!


SOUPER ONION'S GAME OF THE WEEK

The spinner is spun and the BoB has won! This week's Game of the Week is Boom or Bust! Instead of the normal 30 minutes between games, Super Onion is cutting that time in half! Now, we all know how BoB and GAIA get, so you'll be getting a double dose of pleasure and pain!


MOVING FORWARD

Everyone involved with GoneGambling, from us folks behind the scenes to our casinos to our members truly have a vested interest in the site's success. I think it should be becoming clear to our members after the last newsletter and this newsletter that we'll need to make some changes on how we're doing things...and we also need to re-energize our members and ask for their support.

As I said in the last newsletter, this is by no means doom and gloom. The changes we'll make in the coming days/months should be exciting and welcome changes for most...particularly those members who support our sponsors and advertisers.

For our non-depositing members, these changes will likely affect those, most. These changes do not yank the welcome mat out from under the feet of those members, however, we will do whatever makes sense to encourage greater participation from everyone. If you're unable to deposit, remember-participating in other ways on the site (in the forum and in chat) can really make the difference, going forward!

In the meantime, like a broken record, I'm asking members to please stop by our Sunday is Funday chats (trust me-it's worth your time!) and pop into the forum from time to time and join on in some of the conversations.


LAST BUT NOT LEAST

I want to state this emphatically: GoneGambling members are THE BEST! All of us working at GoneGambling appreciate each and every member and we realize that without you, we have nothing. We don't take this for granted.

This newsletter and the last have been very difficult for me to write. I feel as if it's a tightrope I'm walking as I'm explaining things, as the last thing I want is any misunderstandings. GoneGambling was once Goliath and now we're the Little Engine That Could. And we will!

I hope you take these newsletters as they were intended--one part information and one part pep rally.

Thank you for taking the time to read these important newsletters...and it's time to get back to the fun stuff!

Have a wonderful weekend and as always, win BIG!!!

Greedygirl
 
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