When the SEO community caught up to these changes, they where dubbed the “Panda” update, an attempt to fight low quality sites that used link buying, link spamming, and other unsavory tactics to get high placements. Google’s Penguin update also plowed through the online marketing world, focusing more on page content and sites with too much advertising. Of course, this is what Google told us they did, so we’re taking them at face value. Google tends to operate like the CIA: they have a great explanation after the fact, but seem to shoot from the hip while draconian changes are made.

These updates set off a ripple effect of “remove my links now” emails to other webmasters, desperate website redesign attempts, and the birth of Google’s “link disavow” tool that allowed people to disassociate links from spammy sources inside Google Webmaster Tools. Many people went through the drudgery of removing old links, only to see mixed results. Some started building new sites altogether. Others did nothing and rode it out, waiting to see how the dust would settle once the commotion stopped.

At present, there’s no real consensus in the SEO community about “what you should have done”, or more importantly, “what should be done now”.

A few high profile SEO experts essentially advocated a “do nothing” approach. Despite immediate traffic losses, these SEO professionals recommended extreme caution about renovating websites, particularly website link profiles. Links are tough to get, and maybe Google was overstating its concerns about “poor quality links” in order to force webmasters to clean up the internet themselves. If this was Google’s intention, it was a successful ploy.

Of course, the Bible thumping white hat SEOs screamed “I told you so” and parroted their usual talking points, “Content is King” and “Don’t buy links”. That might be sage advice if you’re selling Chia Pets, but being competitive in the online gambling vertical requires some edgy marketing that often times includes paid links, guest blog posts, and forum marketing campaigns. Very few White Hat purists enjoy constant success in the online gambling world because every so often, spammers exploit an algorithm weakness and their websites temporarily lose traffic. They don’t lose money due to bad SEO per se, but because their site or sites get displaced intermittently enough that precious Google traffic is interrupted.

A few days ago, Senior Google engineer Matt Cutts announced yet another round of drastic updates, called “Panda 4″. Webmasters shuddered and are fearing the worst. SEOroundtable.com has an interesting discussion about Panda 4.

Watch Mr. Cutts discuss the update on his video. Is this more bluster from Google or should people be really worried?

In the months subsequent to the most disturbing Panda and Penguin changes, criticism slowly made its way back to Google. High profile SEO experts and conference speakers had Google’s ear and relayed a number of complaints. The following are 3 of the most common, although there are certainly others to consider.

1. People were concerned only big name “authority sites” were given credibility, killing the chances of anyone with small business aspirations. Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Apple.com, etc, results showed up for commercial searches more often then not, even when people were looking for third party reviews and insight. These results were certainly better than pure spam, but not quite up to par from an end user perspective. Of course, snarky remarks about “Google-pedia” were heard, referencing Google’s love of putting Wikipedia results at the top of the page. Clear your cookies and do a Google search for “sports betting”. Wikipedia will come up in the top 5, if not second or third. Is this really a useful result?

2. Others complained forums started taking precedence, being a natural environment where people share ideas. A casual search for small programming needs, ie. “Regex to fix Unicode characters in PERL scripts”, or “Best way to encode Chinese in PHP” will show a few forum pages in the top 10. StackOverflow.com is one example that does offer credible information. Other forums answer questions much less precisely and often require visitors to dig through archived threads and reference other websites to understand what people are discussing. Although it isn’t unreasonable to ask people to research their own solutions, some forum results with half-baked debates and ideas were ultimately very frustrating for Google users.

3. The final common complaint was Google’s occasional grouping of multiple pages from the same website within its top 30-40 search results. Occasionally, some searches would produce 4 or 5 results from the same website on the first page, which is obviously overkill and redundant. If a Google user doesn’t believe 5 results about “bread toasters” from Amazon are credible, it’s rather frustrating to wade through pages of SERPs to find a website with a different point of view. Google has stated previously that the first page should contain a variety of high quality results. The “multiple pages bug” was definitely annoying and an unwanted result of the first instances of Panda.

What should I do now? Should I cease buying links, begin disavowing links, redo my site, or hope and pray that nothing happens?

Honestly, there is no right answer to this question. Cutts admits in his video that the update is “fluid” and subject to change as their data review produces new conclusions. His video is purely a “heads up” vs. “you need to do this”, which is why it has produced anxiety for many who make their living online.

The link buying debate certainly comes to the fore (again). If you’ve purchased links, should you kiss your site good bye? What about less risky guest blog posts on others’ sites? Will my link heavy forum signature destroy my website’s rankings?

Again, there’s no real answer to those questions until AFTER the update has finished. Google’s mission is to minimize the effects of “spammy” practices to manipulate its results. That includes “low quality” links. How does one judge a “low quality” link? That’s something we still don’t precisely know, either.

Google uses computers to execute algorithm changes, not a monolith of human reviewers to manually judge billions of web pages. That means there WILL BE innocent victims in the wake of the coming storm, regardless of how fair or thorough Google believes its update is.

One thing we do know: link quality is most efficiently judged relative to your website’s subject matter. For example, a website about cold medicine would be well advised to get links from major medical websites, universities, and government domains. In the cold medicine market, these links are the highest quality and most productive.

Online gambling is a different beast. Even if you could get a link from Yale.edu to your page about blackjack card counting, will Google actually give it weight or ignore it because the likelihood that it was bought (or spammed) is much stronger? In a sense, gambling webmasters should be getting the best gambling links possible, not necessarily the best links the entire web has to offer.

Realistically, very few gambling sites get mentioned on authority websites, aside from infrequent mentions on news blogs or “Who’s just been arrested” reports. Therefore, a gambling portal webmaster should focus on getting quality links from other websites that DO NOT resemble a link trade or obvious purchase. References in forums, citations in another person’s article, or regular appearances at gambling news sites will help your SEO profile.

Finally, consider branding your site and developing other sources of traffic. If your domain is “super-best-online-casinos-gambling.com”, you might be better off with something like “mojocasinos.com” or “bobscasinoreview.com” so that customers who visit your site can easily remember it later on. That’s marketing 101 and Google’s updates matter little to well branded, easily remembered, high quality websites.

Good luck from JaxCasinos.com!

At the moment Foxwoods must get regulatory approval to offer play money games, but this is a mere formality. The main challenge will be getting REAL money online gambling started in the state of Connecticut and the rest of the nation. The state hasn’t taken a formal position about online gambling yet, although it has been resistant in the past. Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are the state’s only two Native American casinos allowed to operate. They have reaped enormous financial rewards, and so has the state Treasury, which gets 25% of the gross gaming revenue each month. Recent attempts by other Connecticut tribes to gain federal recognition have been shot down, most notably the Golden Hill Paugussetts of Kent, who were opposed by a local anti-casino group that successfully lobbied the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The BIA’s ruling was considered controversial and clearly under the influence of exogenous forces.

Our prediction is that real money online gambling from Foxwoods OR Mohegan Sun will be offered within 3 years. The dominoes are falling in other states hungry for additional tax revenue. Connecticut is a wealthier state than most, but that doesn’t mean people are happy paying high tax rates. Allowing the Native American tribes to run an online casino is potentially LESS threatening to state citizens if customers from around the nation and/or world are welcomed. State anti-casino groups oppose growth of legalized gambling because of social welfare concerns and the fact it is a de facto tax on local residents. That wouldn’t be much of an issue if online slots, blackjack, or roulette are offered to a global market. It would be easy money for the state and the local impact on social well-being would be nominal.

With e-gaming you have to think big, and then bigger. The booming market in Macau SAR, China, is evidence that an online casino based in Connecticut could easily tap into an immense revenue stream. Who in the USA is really against getting money out of China? No one wants people in any state or country to be hopelessly addicted to online gambling, but the State of Connecticut gaming commission could easily mitigate social problems at home or abroad with strict regulations and deposit velocity limits. Many foreigners from China already patronize Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. Why not go after those that don’t feel like taking a long flight to the USA to gamble?

The nation is busy with other matters, but the online gambling bug has crept into the legislative halls of our governments, and the case for legalizing and regulating it in the USA is compelling. Yes, there will have to be control over the age of customers, those who self-exclude themselves from gambling online, and controls on payment processing, but it is a winning proposition if implemented correctly.

See you at Foxwoods in person OR online soon!

Good Luck from JaxCasinos.com!

The management has decided to transfer all player balances to another SBRForum.com “A Rated” sportsbook. This is a departure from the normal routine of simply paying out all players and closing doors. We speculate Legends does NOT have the money to cover all its USA player balances. Therefore, by transferring accounts to another sportsbook, the money becomes that sportsbook’s liability. Of course, USA based customers might decided to wager at the other sportsbook, in which case the account balances *might* become an asset. It will be interesting to see who takes Legends’ orphaned players and how many customers yank their money out for good.

This development isn’t surprising in the least, and is just another offshore sportsbook falling under the weight of USA law enforcement. It has now been revealed that Legends was offering some credit wagering, which isn’t standard operating procedure for post-up sportbooks that take money upfront before accepting a bet. Perhaps agents in the USA went state’s evidence under legal pressure. Additionally, Legends owners living in Florida were transferring money back to the state for living expenses, including a personal jet. This officially qualifies as money laundering in the eyes of the DOJ.

Although the news is breaking as a “Legends problem”, in reality others were snagged in the indictments. The owner of The Greek was also named, another top rated sportsbook with a solid reputation in the industry.

It seems odd that the DOJ has targeted sportsbooks that have – for the most part – done right by their customers. They have functional betting software, responsive customer service, and pay winners as fast as possible. Sportsbooks aren’t awared a “A” rating from SBR for nothing. Essentially, this case is not about ripping off Americans who willingly bet offshore, but more about economics. The DOJ claims in excess of $1 billion was taken by the indictees, and that money should have stayed in the USA where it could have been taxed and regulated. Once money leaves American shores it still must be reported by USA citizens, but it is beyond the reach of law enforcement unless the citizen or financial institution holding the funds is compelled to bring them back (also known as repatriating assets).

These developments naturally beg the question, who’s next? Bodog founder Calvin Ayre is already under indictment and has secured one of the best defense attorneys in the United States to argue his case in lieu of turning himself in. Ayre has no plans to set foot in the USA, and extraditing him from a friendly USA ally might be difficult given his crime is financial and not violent. In the eyes of most other countries, Ayre has done nothing wrong. The same holds true for every other sportsbook operator on the USA radar.

Will this spell the end of offshore sports betting? Not quite. While legalized online poker and casinos games will soon go live in Las Vegas, Delaware, and New Jersey, sports betting is not likely to become legal soon. We use “soon” as a relative term: if poker and casino games prove profitable, someone will suggest online sports betting become legal and regulated inside the USA. Unfortunately, strong lobbies for the NFL, NBA, NHL, and NCAA are diametrically opposed to ANY form of sports betting whether or not it is offline or online. Convincing these groups that legalized online sports betting in the USA would keep each respective league’s games clean would be an uphill battle, but not impossible by any stretch of the imagination.

It seems the DOJ lashes out at those thumbing their noses at USA law enforcement. Strangely, companies that were formerly accepting United States customers through 2006 have NOT been prosecuted. They left the USA market and perhaps made deals with the government behind closed doors. In fact, 888.com was just approved for an online operator’s license in Nevada, despite the fact it welcomed USA customers until 2006 when the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act) was passed. They were wise to leave and bide their time, but aren’t exactly squeaky clean all things considered.

The fate of the Legends and The Greek owners really comes down to their own personal legal maneuvers. Those outside the USA might remain in their host countries until it is absolutely necessary to settle up with the DOJ. Those inside the USA are likely lawyering up and brokering deals. Among a group of indictees, the first to cooperate with the government get no penalties or reduced sentences. Hopefully the hubris that typically personifies offshore sportsbook owners won’t get in the way of their better judgment. It might be better to finish the show now and move on to other things, even if that includes a substantial forfeiture of assets and potential jail time.

Keep your ear to the rail, this case is still developing.

Good Luck from JaxCasinos.com!

The back story is just as interesting as the news itself. The PokerTribes.com website was up and running as a “free play” operation until April 5, 2013, when Oklahoma Authorities had it shuttered. Apparently running a free play online poker website welcoming Americans was not provisioned in their tribal gaming compact. Each tribes’ representatives had to report approach Governor Mary Fallin to resolve the dispute.

In the subsequent days, it has been characterized as a “misunderstanding”, and all sides came to the table to negotiate an agreement that would be productive for everyone. Ultimately, the Cheyenne and Arapaho were allowed to continue developing their PokerTribes.com website for real money gambling with two conditions: 1) international customers only, no USA citizens are permitted, and 2) The state of Oklahoma would get a 20% cut of all revenues.

This deal is eerily reminiscent of the famous gambling compact made by Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker in the early 1990s with the Ledyard Mashantucket Pequots, who later built the Foxwoods Resort and Casino, formerly the largest brick and mortar casino in the world (Foxwoods is currently the 3rd largest, behind two mammoth Macau Casinos). Later, the Mohegan tribe of Uncas, Connecticut, built Mohegan Sun. Weicker’s compact gave the state a 25% cut of gross slots revenues. To date, many other Connecticut tribes have tried to get federal recognition required to erect casinos, but have met stiff resistance and red tape. The last strong contender were the Golden Hill Paugussett Indian Tribe of Kent, Connecticut, who lost their bid amid blow back from a local lobbying group that pulled strings at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. In recent years the Pequots and Mohegans have begun ramping up for online gaming operations, but have not officially been granted the green light.

It appears the Cheyenne and Arapaho beat their Connecticut counterparts to the punch, scoring another win for legalized online gambling in the United States, if only for non-American customers at the moment. If the Oklahoma tribes can show a consistent flow of income to the state, lawmakers would almost certainly call for accepting American clients, boosting revenues further. In the good old USA, money talks. The tribes will have a compelling argument for accepting USA customers if their international operations prove fruitful.

This somewhat unnoticed development also starts the domino-effect for every other tribe in Oklahoma – and indeed the rest of the United States – hoping to cash in with online gambling. If the Arapaho can run an international gambling site, why can’t the Pequots in Connecticut, or the Seminoles in Florida? Forward thinking tribes could easily open international-customers-only websites, honing their marketing, network infrastructure, and payment processing systems, biding their time until USA customers are welcomed. They would almost immediately be able to compete against Nevada and New Jersey, as many Native American physical casinos do already.

Frankly we’re surprised Native American tribes with gaming compacts aren’t being more aggressive on this issue. If the government has recognized their tribe and lands as sovereign, and given them permission to operate a casino, why would they not have the right to go online? Obviously there might be some inter-state commerce issues, particularly with states unwilling to let their citizens gamble online. It’s likely these barriers will fall in time. In reality, someone in Utah who wants to gamble bad enough can vacation in Nevada. Turning on the computer to access an online casino based on tribal lands in Oklahoma, Atlantic City, or Las Vegas isn’t such a stretch, and simply acquiescing to the natural progression of technology.

Good luck from JaxCasinos.com!

When comparing the first 90 days of 2013 to 2012, we noticed roughly the same (or more) people signing up to play in 2013, but dramatically less conversions. Are casinos running bad promotions? Are processors running out of luck? Is the casino’s “conversion” team on lunch break?

If you didn’t already know: a conversion team, or inbound sales team, will typically email or call anyone who signs up at a casino to convince them to deposit. High-end affiliates almost always have someone calling their leads, while smaller affiliates have to wait until their traffic naturally converts before getting special attention.

As usual, casino affiliate programs are big on two things: false promises and bad excuses. We’ve sent dozens of signups to various USA facing affiliate programs in recent months, with only a handful converting into depositors. Naturally, the casino affiliate managers send emails asking for more players, and we respond with “convert the ones I’ve already sent”, to which they respond, “you need to send more signups before we can dedicate the sales team to your leads”.

While a statistically significant sample of signups DOES need to be in the books before judging what is and is NOT working, we would think online casinos would want to convert EVERY customer, regardless of their origin. That type of thinking is akin to turning people away from big-ticket clothing stores because they enter in blue jeans instead of wearing a designer suit. The blue jeans customer might be in the store to spend money because all they have is blue jeans, while the better dressed shopper could just be browsing. NEVER turn away a human body from your website or storefront. It’s bad business, period.

Returning to the demanding affiliate managers, the “send more players and we’ll convert them” discussion goes round and round for months. For all we know, the signups are being converted into house accounts (shaved) and we’re being blamed for sending shoddy traffic which in reality is turning a big profit for the casino merchant. Such is the case with the unregulated offshore gambling business: you have to take the good with the bad, and you must assume that at some point you’re going to get screwed no matter how much traffic you send.

Remember the once popular C-planet affiliate program (Rushmore Casino, Cherry Red, Slot Oasis)? They turned out the lights, leaving affiliates high and dry while they collected full profits on active players in their casinos. Their excuse was “the team that programmed our affiliate tracking software hijacked it and we’re attempting to restore service. Please bear with us.” Affiliates bore with it for a couple months (and we gave them 3 because we had a significant number of players in our account) before pulling links and realizing it was all a scam. Nothing really can be done about it. The players continue to play in blissful ignorance, the casino owners continue to profit, and affiliates continue to search for a program that actually keeps its word.

To be fair to the “good” affiliate programs who track traffic legitimately, it’s possible our websites are just getting crappy traffic, spam signups, or people registering multiple accounts. When the human auditors on the other end catch up to the sketchy signups, our stats are naturally redacted to report only authentic signups and depositors. That’s fine if it is truly the case.

Generally speaking, the “your traffic is crap” excuse from an affiliate programs can only last so long. If you’re not purposely generating accounts or paying people $10 to signup by Paypal, (against the terms and conditions of most affiliate programs), what reason does a spammer have to continually create accounts through your links, other than to sabotage your reputation with the affiliate program (a more advanced form of guerilla marketing that most people don’t have the resources to implement)? Sure, 100 workers in an Asian call center can be hired at Odesk.com for $2 an hour to signup at various casinos, but other than the ability to play Flash based casino games or download the software, there’s not much more that can be done. Eventually paying people to signup will cease when you run out of money or people wise up to the fact that you never intended to pay them in the first place .

Will all these hijinks disappear once the USA market in full swing? If you’re still marketing offshore brands, it’s possible the dodgy affiliate programs will become so desperate for players that they will have no choice but to “go honest”. There’s no way an online casino in San Jose, Costa Rica can compete with the marketing might of a well established Las Vegas casino-resort brand. If you’re switching over to only promote USA properties, the shenanigans might disappear but your income will drop a bit because revenue-sharing programs will NOT be made available (and why would they be?).

There’s still hope for Joe Average affiliate with a couple hobby websites: wait until the USA market is cooking along and there is significantly less red tape involved in becoming an affiliate partner of these brands (Jon Friedman and Pokertrip Enterprises aside). Once big name USA casino brands realize that hiring affiliates through a simple signup form and social security number for taxes is much easier than clearing the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the rest of us can jump back in the game.

Good Luck from JaxCasinos.com!

By 2006, 888.com was roaring along, welcoming players from around the world, including the USA. Then, when UIGEA of 2006 was made law, they respectfully bowed out of the USA market. The loss of American gambling dollars did slow them a bit, but they foraged ahead into the fully legal European markets, particularly the UK. Casino affiliates probably remember various dust-ups over what would happen to their players and income. When 888.com left the USA, they practically closed up shop overnight, leaving many affiliates feeling jilted and used.

Between 2006-2012, 888.com cruised along building its presence in alternative markets. They translated their casino into more than 15 different languages, including Chinese. This allowed them to tap the burgeoning Asian market, whose superstitious players recognize the number “8″ to symbolize wealth and prosperity. Meanwhile, 888.com disavowed all ties to any illegal online gambling activity in the USA, choosing instead to keep a remarkably clean record with European gaming authorities. The Gibralter based business has never been sanctioned by any regulatory board. Further, operating in Gibralter for any length of time proves (more or less) that the company is solvent, since this jurisdiction has some of the strongest regulation in the world.

Nevada Online Gambling Goes Live: Interstate gambling in the works, and 888.com sees a big “in”

While 888.com made it clear USA players were not welcome in recent years, it did reach an agreement with Ceasars Entertainment in 2011 to operate World Series of Poker branded websites in Europe. This partnership needed some clearance in the USA, and 888.com was given the go ahead. This business decision would later prove to be invaluable.

On March 22, 2013, the Nevada Gaming Commission unanimously approved 888.com for entry into the fledgling Nevada online gambling market, soon to reach most people in the USA.

Legal counsel for 888.com cited its spotless record of operation in Europe, successful partnership with Caesar’s Entertainment, and $0 of debt liabilities. Yes, that’s right ZERO money owned to anyone. Additionally, 888.com agreed to hold enough money in the United States to cover 100% of American player balances, a reserve requirement setup by the Nevada Gaming Commission to ensure transparency and trustworthy business operations.

So everything pre-UIGEA 2006 is forgotten? Big Money DOES talk!

Anyone in the land based or online casino industry knows that 888.com operated in a legal gray area for many years in the USA before the 2006 UIGEA chased them out. Were they technically breaking any laws? Not at the time. Did they circumvent tax collection and other reporting requirements as a business profiting from United States customers? Maybe. Was the decision to formally leave the market in 2006 a good one? Absolutely.

Had 888.com stubbornly plodded along in spite of the USA’s strong anti-online gambling stance and continued to process payments, they could have been liable for civil and criminal damages. They didn’t; and effectively kept their noses clean on USA soil.

The Nevada Gaming Control board was well aware of their involvement in the USA during online gambling’s infancy, but felt satisfied 888.com has acted in good faith since it ceased accepting USA players.

Now that USA online gambling is becoming fully legal, they have wisely stepped back in and won the approval of the Nevada Gaming Commission handily.

888.com recently posted it’s biggest profits to date, with a 13% jump in revenue in 2012, all of which was derived from legal European markets. That’s good enough for government in the USA, and their $0 in debt liabilities only further strengthens their financial credentials to operate with complete solvency on USA soil.

While 888.com might not have the balance sheet of other well established Las Vegas brands, don’t count them out: they’ got the IT knowledge, operating software, payment processing, and customer service know-how to compete with any Vegas Giant going online. They will undoubtedly jump into the race a few steps ahead, while their formerly land-based-only competition scrambles to hire qualified online gambling employees.

This development proves that nothing is absolute in USA law, despite the sanctimonious and far reaching activities of the DOJ and state civil courts. Leaving in 2006 was the right thing to do, and 888.com smartly bided its time waiting for the chance to come back.

Any past run ins with USA law enforcement before 2006 have been forgotten now that this big-money player is ready to do business AND pay taxes in the USA.

If you have the money, you have the power.