Five years on from its launch, the independent player protection and standards body eCOGRA continues to widen its sphere of influence through carefully selected associations with industry websites of substance and integrity.
The most obvious collective in this operational endeavour is that of the operators to whom eCOGRA provides best practice standards that are maintained to high levels through monitoring and enforcement. Operators are divided into four categories, each with dedicated requirements appropriate to activity: online casinos, online poker rooms, mobile gambling operations and major business groups.
A commitment to business professionalism and a desire to distinguish properties as tier one operations in terms of efficiency and fairness is a common motivating factor among operators seeking an eCOGRA accreditation. And it is a major commitment, because every aspect of the property is examined in detail for compliance with eCOGRA's best practice requirements in the areas of software fairness, management probity, administration, finance, customer service and support, responsible gambling, privacy, dispute procedures and marketing systems.
To date, a total of 119 online gambling venues have passed the exhaustive inspections and achieved the tier one status of eCOGRA's revocable Safe and Fair seal, submitting to continuous monitoring and regular in-depth reviews. These operations, which can be viewed on the eCOGRA website at www.ecogra.org, represent many of the most well established and successful online gambling companies on the Internet.
Webmasters
The need to build relationships, protect players and communicate through reputable Internet gambling webmasters has seen the development of another level of activity by eCOGRA, following approaches by many well established gambling information portal owners.
This level permits linking with professionally run and integrity driven online gambling information sites whose webmasters share eCOGRA's player protective ideals and the objective of honest and ethical conduct in the industry. To date, 103 websites have signed up as part of this scheme.
Webmasters make application through the eCOGRA website and are carefully considered with the following criteria in mind:
* At least an uninterrupted six months or more in business under the portal brand to be linked.
* The webmaster undertakes to provide his or her name and contact details, and eCOGRA undertakes to regard this information as strictly confidential.
* Linking is done on the understanding that the relationship can be severed at any time by either party, without notice or explanation.
* Sites that link to eCOGRA will be reviewed by independent eCOGRA contractors on a regular basis.
* Applicants to link will be confidentially vetted.
* Applicants are expected to be professional webmasters and to conduct themselves accordingly i.e. no SEO "black hat" practices such as site scraping or blog spamming, no spamming and clear respect for the player community.
* Applicants must under no circumstances abuse the linking privilege for purposes of spamming or other unethical activities.
* Any misuse of the eCOGRA or "Safe and Fair" brands will mean immediate cessation of the linking arrangement.
* Webmasters committed to the professional ideals of bodies such as the GPWA, CAP or other professional webmaster/affiliate bodies will receive preferential consideration in view of the membership requirements of those organisations.
* eCOGRA will not to be associated with sites that promote well known "rogue operations" and webmasters are expected to be vigilant in that regard.
* Reciprocal recognition of eCOGRA on the linked portal site is required, with eCOGRA seals displayed alongside approved casinos and poker rooms, linking through to a brief overview about eCOGRA.
Affiliates
eCOGRA's next initiative will extend its interest into the affiliate marketing sphere insofar as it concerns business groups holding the Safe and Fair accreditation.
Extensive research has established a set of best practice requirements for affiliate programs, covering all aspects of the relationship between such programs and the affiliates who promote Safe and Fair casinos, poker rooms and mobile gambling operations.
In a pilot project, these standards and requirements are currently being implemented at one of the busiest affiliate programs associated with the organisation, and will then be subjected to intense monitoring to prove the concept that affiliate marketing can be better professionalised and policed.
Once the results of the pilot program have been fully evaluated, it will be extended to other affiliate programs desirous of going that extra mile for both affiliates and the players they serve.
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