Are affiliates really taking responsible gambling seriously?

For online gambling affiliates in regulated markets around the world, the main focus over the past 12 months has been compliance and responsible gambling.

As operators come under increasing pressure to ensure players are properly protected, so too are affiliates when it comes to targeting and acquiring traffic responsibly and fairly.

This has forced affiliates to re-think the methods and strategies they use to engage and convert readers into players, as well as the information, resources and tools they provide.

Improvements have been made to the way affiliates promote bonuses and offers to players, particularly when it comes to making them aware of the terms and conditions attached.

Affiliates are also now required to promote gambling addition charities such as begambleaware.org and ensure an 18+ icon is visible on the homepage.

But is this really enough to protect players from developing problem play patterns and habits? We think a lot more can – and should – be done.

One of the easiest ways affiliates can improve responsible gambling is in the content they create. At the moment, most simply produce a responsible gambling guide and leave it at that.

Affiliates are content specialists, so this is seriously underutilising their skills. Sure, create a responsible gambling guide but take this to the next level with additional articles.

This can include explainers about limits and how players can use them to control deposits, losses, session times and to even cool off for a period of time.

What’s more, players still struggle when it comes to understanding wagering requirements and how they work, so detailed articles with examples are a great way of addressing this.

These features and guides should be heavily promoted by the affiliate, rather than being buried deep within a site that often has hundreds of pages.

Taking this a step further, affiliates should work more closely with online gambling addiction charities to help make improvements to how they operate.

They should also team up with gambling blocking software providers such as gamban® to ensure those that do develop problem play habits know how to block gambling sites and apps.

This is something we have done, partnering with gamban® to provide our readers with a three-month trial if they wish to use the tool to block access to casino sites and apps.

This may sound counter-intuitive to some, but any professional and respectable affiliate wants to attract quality traffic that remains happy and healthy at the online casinos they choose to play at.

By giving players information and tools to do this, affiliates can be sure they are doing everything they can to protect players while also ensuring they send the best traffic to their partners.

Affiliates should also consider ways they can help operators ensure they are compliant, particularly when it comes to terms and conditions.

At the moment, most operators will email affiliates when they change bonus offers and terms and conditions, but this is simply not an effective way of making sure information is accurate.

Some affiliates work with hundreds of casino partners – Bojoko has more than 300 – and it’s just not possible to keep on top of emails and make the necessary changes.

To overcome this, we have automated the bonus and terms and conditions process. Each of our listings contains a link to the operator’s terms and conditions which they update themselves.

We also allow operators to log-in to Bojoko and amend their bonus offers. This means they can make the necessary changes straight away.

This has proved to be hugely popular with our partners as they can be certain that the offers and T&Cs are accurate and compliant at all times.

Indeed, compliance and responsible gambling are here to stay and the affiliates that prioritise protecting players will be able to build a successful and sustainable business.

Great strides have been made in the past 12 months, but more can and should be done so that this time next year players are even better protected.

Joonas Karhu is chief business officer at Bojoko.com