Casinos turn blind-eye to message board spam

Well-known internet casinos may be knowingly partnering with companies that target internet message boards with spam, as exposed earlier this month by silicon.com.

Many of the domains cited by silicon.com appear to be promoting well-known online casino businesses such as 888.com and PartyGaming.

For example, one of the domains being heavily promoted in message board spam, Hobbyworkshop.com, contains links to both of these rival companies' websites as well as branding from both of these publicly traded casino businesses.

The story is the same at e-casinoroom.com and also at typo7.com - other domains identified by silicon.com as appearing in spam on message boards.

Experts claim such embedded links, brand-name use and the practice of spamming message boards all raises the Google ranking and online prominence of the domains but there is growing concern that such underhand tactics are at best unwittingly endorsed by the casinos, due to generous affiliate schemes they offer to companies willing to promote their businesses online.

Affiliate schemes in the hugely competitive online casino business are certainly a growing industry.

888.com has recently been offering a highly lucrative 45 per cent revenue share for online affiliates who drive customers to the site.

At the time of writing, 888.com had declined to answer questions from silicon.com about whether the domains named above are official members of its affiliate scheme.

PartyGaming, whose marketing team silicon.com contacted prior to publishing the original article, has also failed to respond to enquiries about any existing relationship with the named domains.

However, whether the casinos endorse this behaviour, turn a blind eye to it or are simply totally oblivious, they are still guilty of failing to protect their brand names and ensure their business is promoted responsibly, at a time when online gaming is in the glare of the authorities' spotlight.

Anti-spam expert Mark Sunner, CTO at MessageLabs, told silicon.com: "There isn't much worse a tarnish than being lumped in with the spam and virus lot."

Sunner said even if the casinos are unaware of their services being promoted in this way, "you'd think they'd be more concerned about their brands".

Sunner added: "It's not like they can't have a lot of internet savvy about them. At the very least they are being irresponsible."