Bwin.party Restricting New Players in 18 Countries

Bwin.party emailed affiliates today notifying them that they would stop accepting new players from 18 countries after April 30, 2013. This move was done partially to withdraw from countries that are considered to be gray markets. Some of the countries are also historically low player value countries. This move was done to both bring the company into a proper regulatory environment as well as control some of the costs required in acquiring players from countries where the lifetime player revenue is too low.

Here is the actual email:

Dear affiliate partner!

Please note that due to commercial reasons, as of 30.04.2013, we will no longer be accepting new traffic for any of our brands from the following countries:

Argentina, Armenia, Belarus, Brazil, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and the Ukraine.
Please remove all relevant bwin.party marketing materials from your website by 30.04.2013.

Commission on existing traffic in these markets will continue to be paid according to our Standard Terms and Conditions.

We thank you for your co-operation and would like to apologise for any inconvenience that these changes may cause.

Should you have any queries, please contact us at: affiliate@bwinpartypartners.com
All the best,

Your bwin.party partners team

This move only affects new signups for bwin.party. Existing players will not be affected by this change.

This is one of many recent moves by bwin.party to change their player base. The company dropped the top tier of their VIP program on March 31, 2013. The bwin.party affiliate program has also been dropping affiliates or reducing their commission rates if new depositing players are not consistently being referred. This change has not affected affiliates under PAS. The company also has new online poker software under development that is aimed towards recreational players, which has become the theme for bwin.party.

Bwin.party also announced news in Belgium today. The group received a license to operate in the country under the bwin brand name. The new website for Belgians is bwin.be. The Belgium market is not ring fenced like France, Italy and Spain are but the country does require licensing to offer online gambling.

How Affiliates Should Prepare for the Move

Affiliates and publishers that have a large player base in these countries will need to make some changes. Affiliates that manage geotargeting for their sites should remove the newly banned Party Poker and bwin countries by April 30th. Affiliates and publishers that specialize in the countries will need to create a marketing strategy for other rooms that still accept their players. This means creating new media for your website, fresh content and direct mailers.

This is also a good time to notify your existing players at these rooms that they are not affected by this move as they may be concerned if they see a notice on your website about it. Players in the 18 affected countries will also want to know that their time to sign up for these rooms is limited so make sure to contact your players about this change. It may be done with a news story, forum post or mailer.

Poker Affiliate Solutions Discussion – Blogs

http://www.casinoaffiliateebook.com/2013/04/19/bwin-party-restricting-new-players-in-18-countries/