Bookmakers Offers and Affiliate Links

Latest posts by Man of Mystery (see all)

Affiliate links can be good news for free bet hunters as quite often there are bigger free bets available via affiliates than there are on the bookmaker site itself. However, as with anything else bookmaker related, you need to do some research and follow the T&Cs to the letter. I have touched on this subject before in my article on cashback sites – this one deals with other places where you may find free bets advertised.

The relationship between bookmakers, their affiliates and their customers is rather a strange one. Many bookmakers have an affiliate programme – you will see this advertised on their sites, typically offering a percentage of customer losses or a flat fee per customer. In general the more traffic you have through your site the better the offers will be – not all affiliates get the same free bet offers.

From the bookmaker’s point of view all advertising is good, and offering free bets for signing up is a recognized way of attracting new customers. However they also know that free bets attract the sort of customers that they don’t want – arbers and bonus baggers.

One of the groups of people most likely to advertise bookmakers are free bet sites and odds comparison sites, but these are precisely the places where the arbers and bonus baggers go. There are more and more of these – you will have seen the adverts, often flashing banners with £x free bet on them. Some of these offers are the best around, some of them are very poor indeed.

The main thing to remember with all of these sites is that while they can be useful, the sole aim of the site owners in advertising free bets is to make themselves money. They don’t really care if you could make £60 from sigining up to William Hill via the Racing Post – they want you to use their link and get £25. They also don’t care if the bookie is dodgy or worse, as long as they get their affiliate money. If you end up with a grand stuck in there that you can’t get out, that’s your problem not theirs.

Even the sites that you might expect to be reputable and “safe” are not immune to this behaviour. Moneybookers sometimes have offers for bookmaker signups on their promotions page. During August 2010 Moneybookers advertised a €50 signup offer for a bookie called Bets4all. It was the first and therefore most obvious offer on the list. I posted a warning on the BetSeventyTwo forum at the time: “This bookmaker is rated F at SBR (scam) and on the red list, rated 1 at BR. Please, please don’t sign up – you will not get paid.” I wonder if the subsequent report on Bookmakersreview about Moneybookers was as a result of people signing up to Bets4all – it would not surprise me. Of course there was no warning whatsoever on Moneybookers.

Other things that might catch you out with free bet sites and affiliate links are links to out of date offers left up on the sites, and the increasing tendency of bookmakers to check that you have gone through the affiliate site itself. These links are carefully constructed so that you click on the advert and it takes you through an affiliate identifier and onto a landing page at the bookie. This page typically has details of the free bet on it. But if you just go to the landing page, the affiliate ID is not triggered and you may well not get the free bet. Well-meaning posters on forums can post the urls of these landing pages and imply that you will get the free bet from them. Always try to identify who the affiliate is, and go to the bookie via the link on their page. Bookies who have a record of challenging affiliate links are Centrebet, Boyles and Partybets, but there may well be others.

Affiliate links on the BetClub Site.

We may sometimes have our own affiliate links on this site, but we will always tell you when we are using them and give you an alternative. The only exception to this is the tools – see below. The fact that we have an affiliate link does not mean that the bookie is safe – you should decide that for yourself from all the available information. Using our links helps towards the cost of running BetClub and will help to keep membership fees low.

Articles and forum:

I will not fill articles with affiliate links to bookies. I would much prefer you to go to the bookie page and read about the bookie than click on a link from an article without researching the bookie properly. The same applies to the forum – when I post a link there it is to a specific offer. Signup offers can be found on the bookie pages unless they are very short term.

Bookie Pages:

Any affiliate offers belonging to BetClub may be posted in the bookie pages, but are always clearly labelled as such. I spend a great deal of time checking around for the best offers available, and when I find them I will post them in the bookie pages alongside our links.

Tools:

IMPORTANT: I have no control over the content of these tools or these links and they may not get you the free bets shown on the bookmakers list.

The Oddsmatcher contains some affiliate links belonging to BetClub – we chose this option because it gives us the flexibility to turn off some of the bookies which duplicate odds shown by other bookies on there. There is no way of indicating the offer available on Oddsmatcher and you are advised to consult the relevant bookie page if you want to sign up.

ALL free bet sites, odds comparison tools and forums advertising free bets should be treated with caution, yes even Moneybookers, Oddsmatcher and SBR (check the difference in rating, (now C from B+)/2, between SBR and BR for SBR’s affiliate Betphoenix)! For any new bookie, check the bookie pages and colour coding on this site, check the SBR reports and Bookmakersreview. If you can’t find a reference to the bookie concerned, ask on the forum or in the live chat and if in doubt, avoid. The plain fact is that there are more bad bookies out there than good ones. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the blacklist page on SBR.

 

Forum discussion of this subject from BetSeventyTwo

Latest underhand tactics by bookmakers

by corner123 » Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:10 pm

Something that I am noticing that is becoming more common is the tendency of bookies and affiliate sites to leave out of date offers up, sometimes without any warning, and to wriggle out of awarding free bets for signups via affiliate links. I’ve noticed several variations on this theme recently:

Jaxx and Zedbet still have offers clearly advertised on their site homepage, which have expiry dates of 31/7/10 in the T&Cs. I have no idea if you would get the free bet if you attempted these.

A couple of days ago someone attempted to sign up with Partybets via our affiliate link in the bookiwiki. The free bet was refused on the grounds that he already had an account with Gamebookers, but he was also told that the affiliate link was out of date. We have not been informed that our link needs updating, and there is no date in the T&Cs. I have amended the bookiwiki accordingly, awaiting a new link from Party, if they will give us one.

Today I have been told that although the Skybet £30 signup is still advertised on the Sportinglife website, and the link still works, you only get 2x £5 free bets, not £30. I have removed this link from the bookie page and replaced it with instructions for the best offer I am aware of, which is £10 free bet + £10 cashback via Betrescue.

There have been other reports of denial of bonuses, notably by Centrebet, for people signing up from links to landing pages on free bet sites, which have been copied from elsewhere. Where this could be an issue I will direct you to the affiliate site which has the offer, rather than pasting a link on the bookie list. This means that you can check yourself that the link is still there, and that you cannot be “done” for not using the correct affiliate site. Note that the same problem may occur if you Google for the best offer and sign up via an apparent link in the list of results on the Google page.

The message is clear – while I do my best to provide up to date links to the best offers, I cannot guarantee that the links themselves have been maintained up to date by the relevant affiliates or bookies. The dilemma is whether to advise you to use the affiliates at all, or simply to stick to the offers which are on the sites. I don’t know the answer, so I thought the best policy was to discuss the subject here, where everyone can see it.

by pyroleen » Wed Aug 18, 2010 3:24 pm

Further to the above, Partybets were perfectly happy to allow me to sign up, deposit and place a qualifying bet. It was only once it had been settled and I asked where my free bet was, that they dug down and replied with a rather rude email revealing that the link had expired.

So, I emailed back, complete with a copy of the link and a screen shot to show it was still live and advertising a free £25 bet. They reply with a slightly ruder email (bookies are very friendly when they want your cash, less so when you want theirs!) advising that they were unable to offer a free bet as goodwill gesture (as other bookies often do if you plead ignorance), as I was already a member of Gamebookers, part of the same company.

The blame for this lies entirely at the feet of the bookies and; at best their sloppy admin practices or; at worst their downright fraud.

Corner does an excellent job of collating all the latest information available on all the bookies and the site is updated at least daily. The offers posted and information on the Bookiwiki will always be the best offer for the customer available at that time, regardless of the affiliate link etc etc, based on the information available.

Now, the question remains: Should you follow links and hidden bonus codes hunted down from the four corners of the betting world, or blindly follow what the bookies offer on their homepage?

That’s your choice.

Either way, my advice is this: Read those ts&cs, then read them again!

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