Casino Talks

Posted by: vinylweatherman at January 1, 2008, 10:22 pm

Topic: More Palace Group SPAM! Forum: Casino Meister

Quote: Originally Posted by Zoozie

I also got this snail mail today and I was equally surprised. Of course I had to see what "spcasino" was and I had expected some a new Playtech rogue casino though the mail had the "Palace Group" logo.

But why make a URL and just forward to "spin palance"? White label?
And the offer in the mail (1 hour free slot play) was only for new customers, so why the hell then send me the mail? Someone sold me out.

What saddens me most is that this is traced to the Palace Group which so far has been clean in my book.

This just proves my point. This is an INTERNATIONAL campaign, and rules out it being a localised UK company using alternate sources of UK details for use with marketing a client.
This can only mean my full details have been released by the online casino(s) to arious third party marketing firms, who are now using them beyond simply servicing the casinos I have accounts with by bulk sending me PROPER personalised offers such as Christmas cards, postal bonuses, gifts, etc.

Changing our POSTAL details is a hell of a lot harder than changing our E-mail addresses, and with no sender details given, there is no way to inform the marketing firm we do not want their snailmail (the blank reverse side being too shiny for my printer in this one), or to stop these details being sent to OLD addresses should we move.

I have just watched a documentary on Facebook, which exposes what industry is REALLY up to with our personal details. One firm, 1000 Heads, has a room full of staff just going through all our info, and listening into facebook conversations, in order to extract and sell VERY comprehensive databases on us (not me, I haven't joined). Facebook also has ambitions to trawl other media, such as newspapers and the internet, to build a "superdatabase" on it's members life profile (the reporter was told this would not be permitted under UK and EU laws, but can be done because Facebook has a far more lenient regime - it's based in the USA!!!!). This has those "city boys" wetting their proverbial pants in anticipation of the "next Google" worth billions (seems they have learned nothing from 2000/1).

Knowing all this, casino reps need to be wary of giving out the patronising excuses for this debacle that they have currently been offering. This is no "loose cannon" affiliate or two, this is pre-planned bulk marketing (or spamming) requiring specialist knowledge, not the sort of thing the average amaetur affiliate will posess. This also means our details are NOT SAFE if they are passed to subcontractors, no matter how well meaning, the big marketing outfits have shown how damn determined they are to find loopholes in all regulations and oluntary agreements meant to protect out personal data from being exploited.

With what we are up against, perhaps polite conversation with the casinos, their reps, and even eCogra is just not enough to get what is necessary done. It seems that only a rap over the knuckles from the big government regulators will have enough clout, as well as exposure in the mass media.
We have the example of Absolute Poker to work with, it was ONLY when the mass media and regulators got their teeth into the issue that they acted.

The best way to enfoce this would be for the casinos to be fined for each and every unique "spam" that players forward to the regulators after a period of grace has been given in order to put a stop to it. The fine would be levied if the casino have some pressure they can excersise, such as suspending the offending affiliate account, but refuse to do it. With snailmail, the fines should be levied if the mail is in any way misleading, such as pretending someone is qualified for a personalised offer when in fact it is just the standard new player offer. Mailers sent by official marketing firms MUST properly identify the casino, not use disguised referral sites, and the detais of the sender MUST be on the letter/leaflet in case the recipient wants to ask that their details be removed from that marketing firm's database.

There are three main entities here in the UK that may have an interest in this:-

1) Trading standards
2) Advertising standards agency
3) Gambling commission

If these confirm laws and regulations have been breached, then others may take an interest. The result may be that some reputable casinos that embark on these practices will end up on trading standard's "rogue firms lists", and it may also endanger their whitelisted status here in the UK if they have one, and if they are in a juristiction that is applying, they may damage the chances that said juristiction will be granted whitelist status by the UK Gambling Commission.

Pity I only have the one copy though.

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