What is Duplicate Supression?

**TheGooner** · 1 May 2015, 5:50 pm

Originally Posted by Louis - Income Access

Gooner, when you first brought these concerns up, I suggested some steps for us to scientifically test the tracking in an unbiased manner, as this anecdotal data warrants real testing.

Hello Louis. Always useful to get your response.

Your "steps" consisted of having us register some accounts from our location /computers and test their appearance.
A nice generic reply - but lacking rigidity of approach.

A number of the UK clients do not accept my location (non-UK) as a client - and those that do we already have testing accounts at - so we would be creating accounts via proxies and creating duplicate accounts - all of which may be correctly filtered.

If these accounts were filtered then it would be arguably correct - and not prove invalid suppression.
IF the accounts were not filtered then it would be arguably correct - but not prove the absence of suppression in other cases.

The effort you outlined is flawed and would prove nothing either way.

I don't want to offend you - but I would suggest that a Marketing Manager should probably not be suggesting a test plan for an issue as important as this.

Originally Posted by Louis - Income Access

I still feel that this would be a worthwhile effort, as you've been a valuable affiliate for a number of our brands and the relationship is worth saving.

Then I suggest that you raise this growing unrest within your company - rather than bounce issues back - and explain the ground swell of affiliate opinion is that the IA software does not accurately track and capture all registrations and is considered inferior to other brands.

This is a serious issue - and does require a serious response.
Not a PR response.

Technology changes all the time - does IA software function correctly when interacting with all the major customer devices?
How do you know? What tests are done? How often are they done?

I would expect Income Access to have a dedicated test script - and a testing group within the company whose primary role was to continue to test and audit the capture and client software to ensure that new devices / browsers were still being registered correctly and that any 3rd party filters were not affecting reliability.

I spent years (decades) within major IT groups writing software for and testing ATMs, EFTPOS and phone banking systems, I know the idiosyncratic errors that can creep in when catering for a myriad of different devices.

A dozen devices (phones, tablets, desktop, mac) and 2-3 geo-locations should fit the bill. IT might be a bit larger after detail analysis as you would want to cover major brands (apple, samsung / android, windows phone, MAC, PC, linux, phones, tablets etc). If there was a documented quarterly test of your major clients tracking, showing devices used, and the tracking results then it would go a LONG way toward providing assurances that there were not tracking/filtering/suppression holes in the reporting.

Originally Posted by Louis - Income Access

I know you know Nicky, Sarafina and others at Income Access are not the type of people to risk skimming affiliate traffic.

There is a large difference between what I have stated and a suggestion that "Nicky, Sarafina and others at Income Access" are actively skimming traffic.

However, there is a significant disparity of performance between the Income Access "Award winning" software and other brands / home grown reporting systems.

We could have any number of issues - ranging from :
- 3rd party "duplicate" suppression going too far. (malfunctioning 3rd party software)
- some mobile devices not being processed correctly (incompatible devices / malfunction IA software).
- client individuals taking advantage of editing facilities to boost the company profits (fraud).
- (plus another 3-4 other options )

As you can see only a small percentage of these are IA's "fault" - but they all affect the viability of the IA software suite.

Originally Posted by Louis - Income Access

We've been with this industry since its infancy and seen how brands that cheat get burned ...
I encourage you to consider this.

It's not about "cheating" at this point - it is about identifiable drops in tracking.

There are three main parties to this affiliate progress - the client (gambling firm) - the software provider - the affiliate.

1/ CLIENT : So far the client is happy as the product appears to work and affiliate profits/costs are down. - Hoorah!
2/ SOFTWARE : Income Access is happy because the software is being leased / sold and is winning awards - Hoorah!
3/ AFFILIATES : But ... the affiliates are not happy because affiliate costs/profits are down. Huh?!

So far the thoughts of the AFFILIATES have not factored into this situation because the first two parties are the big money players. But of course the affiliate business and affiliate software cannot function without actual affiliates. That realisation is starting to occur.

--------------------------------------

WHERE I AM AT TODAY :

It was six months ago that someone (not me) raised the IA tracking issue. I almost dismissed it out-of-hand. But the initial post wasn't a rant - it was a considered post - so I checked my own data and was very surprised to see the results (outlined above).

I raised the issue - and have seen little traction with Income Access senior management or at the client companies. I guess I am not surprised - they are happy with the status quo - and "management" probably don't appreciate the fact that it is a complex product with many possibilities for technical issue - so dismiss the situation out of hand.

(Damn affiliates always complaining!)

Six months on - and nothing has changed - and it's a bit of sideways shuffle from the top two parties with no-one really interested.

Well - things have changed for me.
1/ We will not take on NEW Income Access clients - and we tell them why (software failure) when they approach us.
2/ We are minimising efforts with EXISTING Income Access clients - and we tell them.

IF Income Access want to sit down and discuss a proper and rigorous testing approach to their product, then we have something to discuss. Being told to do some "test registrations" will NOT cut it.

**justbookies** · 2 May 2015, 2:15 am

Originally Posted by TheGooner

We could have any number of issues - ranging from :
- 3rd party "duplicate" suppression going too far. (malfunctioning 3rd party software)
- some mobile devices not being processed correctly (incompatible devices / malfunction IA software).
- client individuals taking advantage of editing facilities to boost the company profits (fraud).
- (plus another 3-4 other options )

Points 1 & 3 are the heart of the problem that Income Access need to address to retain the credibility of their software. Operators editing their own data is either flirting with fraud or outright fraud.

**webanalysissolutions** · 2 May 2015, 1:49 pm

Originally Posted by TheGooner

1/ We will not take on NEW Income Access clients - and we tell them why (software failure) when they approach us.
2/ We are minimising efforts with EXISTING Income Access clients - and we tell them.

We've done exactly the same for the past year or so after finding numerous complaints about IA and having been on the end of several detrimental effects of advertisers using this system. When a new advertiser contacts us we have no problem at all in pointing them towards the posts across multiple affiliate forums detailing IA deficiencies and why as a business we steer away from advertisers using the software.

We also work with clients who are considering moving to Income Access and we highlight that we would not be able to work with them in the future if this was the case.

Sorry, but if the big companies and the affiliate system companies are protecting their interests, then the small affiliate companies on the receiving end also need to protect their interests too.

**webanalysissolutions** · 2 May 2015, 2:09 pm

Originally Posted by TheGooner

Your "steps" consisted of having us register some accounts from our location /computers and test their appearance.
A nice generic reply - but lacking rigidity of approach.

A number of the UK clients do not accept my location (non-UK) as a client - and those that do we already have testing accounts at - so we would be creating accounts via proxies and creating duplicate accounts - all of which may be correctly filtered.

If these accounts were filtered then it would be arguably correct - and not prove invalid suppression.
IF the accounts were not filtered then it would be arguably correct - but not prove the absence of suppression in other cases.

The effort you outlined is flawed and would prove nothing either way.

I don't want to offend you - but I would suggest that a Marketing Manager should probably not be suggesting a test plan for an issue as important as this

Thanks Gooner, a well considered and factual balanced post as always. I would also add though, when it comes to testing, being an affiliate is hard enough in terms of keeping up with new ideas, developments, and trying to make money. The last thing we need is to feel obliged to continually test affiliate software to make sure it's still working and tracking.

There are some programs you can just rely on, and the trust is there so you can almost take that company's word for it when they tell you things are tracking correctly.

Sadly with IA, it feels like pot luck each month when you see your stats - you have no idea how many players didn't track, how many have been filtered out of the stats file, whether your revenue is correct (affiliates have reported recently that test account deposits only showed up as 50% of the true values when they hit the affiliate system), and on top of that unless you check all your banners and links you have no idea that all of them are still working and tracking correctly (see post on "invalid links" and the ability for advertisers to delete/disable media, which still hasn't been fixed).

We try to test a lot of the above, but it's becoming an erroneous job each month to do so. Plus, when you do find an error you can't get anyone to resolve it or compensate you for the lost earnings, so why bother testing?, just drop/minimise exposure to that program. Highly frustrating really. I think in general a lot of affiliates hang in there with some of these IA programs because some of them are big brands, and there's a hope that things will get better and revenues will improve. However there comes a point where you have to take the business decision to move on and give the space to someone who will make you money.

**-Shay-** · 5 May 2015, 8:08 am

Originally Posted by TheGooner

Hello Louis. Always useful to get your response.

Your "steps" consisted of having us register some accounts from our location /computers and test their appearance.
A nice generic reply - but lacking rigidity of approach.

A number of the UK clients do not accept my location (non-UK) as a client - and those that do we already have testing accounts at - so we would be creating accounts via proxies and creating duplicate accounts - all of which may be correctly filtered.

If these accounts were filtered then it would be arguably correct - and not prove invalid suppression.
IF the accounts were not filtered then it would be arguably correct - but not prove the absence of suppression in other cases.

The effort you outlined is flawed and would prove nothing either way.

I don't want to offend you - but I would suggest that a Marketing Manager should probably not be suggesting a test plan for an issue as important as this.

Then I suggest that you raise this growing unrest within your company - rather than bounce issues back - and explain the ground swell of affiliate opinion is that the IA software does not accurately track and capture all registrations and is considered inferior to other brands.

This is a serious issue - and does require a serious response.
Not a PR response.

Technology changes all the time - does IA software function correctly when interacting with all the major customer devices?
How do you know? What tests are done? How often are they done?

I would expect Income Access to have a dedicated test script - and a testing group within the company whose primary role was to continue to test and audit the capture and client software to ensure that new devices / browsers were still being registered correctly and that any 3rd party filters were not affecting reliability.

I spent years (decades) within major IT groups writing software for and testing ATMs, EFTPOS and phone banking systems, I know the idiosyncratic errors that can creep in when catering for a myriad of different devices.

A dozen devices (phones, tablets, desktop, mac) and 2-3 geo-locations should fit the bill. IT might be a bit larger after detail analysis as you would want to cover major brands (apple, samsung / android, windows phone, MAC, PC, linux, phones, tablets etc). If there was a documented quarterly test of your major clients tracking, showing devices used, and the tracking results then it would go a LONG way toward providing assurances that there were not tracking/filtering/suppression holes in the reporting.

There is a large difference between what I have stated and a suggestion that "Nicky, Sarafina and others at Income Access" are actively skimming traffic.

However, there is a significant disparity of performance between the Income Access "Award winning" software and other brands / home grown reporting systems.

We could have any number of issues - ranging from :
- 3rd party "duplicate" suppression going too far. (malfunctioning 3rd party software)
- some mobile devices not being processed correctly (incompatible devices / malfunction IA software).
- client individuals taking advantage of editing facilities to boost the company profits (fraud).
- (plus another 3-4 other options )

As you can see only a small percentage of these are IA's "fault" - but they all affect the viability of the IA software suite.

It's not about "cheating" at this point - it is about identifiable drops in tracking.

There are three main parties to this affiliate progress - the client (gambling firm) - the software provider - the affiliate.

1/ CLIENT : So far the client is happy as the product appears to work and affiliate profits/costs are down. - Hoorah!
2/ SOFTWARE : Income Access is happy because the software is being leased / sold and is winning awards - Hoorah!
3/ AFFILIATES : But ... the affiliates are not happy because affiliate costs/profits are down. Huh?!

So far the thoughts of the AFFILIATES have not factored into this situation because the first two parties are the big money players. But of course the affiliate business and affiliate software cannot function without actual affiliates. That realisation is starting to occur.

--------------------------------------

WHERE I AM AT TODAY :

It was six months ago that someone (not me) raised the IA tracking issue. I almost dismissed it out-of-hand. But the initial post wasn't a rant - it was a considered post - so I checked my own data and was very surprised to see the results (outlined above).

I raised the issue - and have seen little traction with Income Access senior management or at the client companies. I guess I am not surprised - they are happy with the status quo - and "management" probably don't appreciate the fact that it is a complex product with many possibilities for technical issue - so dismiss the situation out of hand.

(Damn affiliates always complaining!)

Six months on - and nothing has changed - and it's a bit of sideways shuffle from the top two parties with no-one really interested.

Well - things have changed for me.
1/ We will not take on NEW Income Access clients - and we tell them why (software failure) when they approach us.
2/ We are minimising efforts with EXISTING Income Access clients - and we tell them.

IF Income Access want to sit down and discuss a proper and rigorous testing approach to their product, then we have something to discuss. Being told to do some "test registrations" will NOT cut it.

If I could put this entire post in my signature, I would. Post of the year regarding Income Access.

**Louis - Income Access** · 8 May 2015, 11:37 am

Hi Paul

Thanks for the detailed post - this gives us something clear to address. I will try to take the major points on in an organized way here.

Getting upper management involved:

I can assure you that every level of management is aware of the issues that have been raised here and it is a concern to everyone involved in the company. We've built our success in the industry on being reliable, transparent and trustworthy, and keeping affiliate trust is very important to us. The challenge is figuring out how to address the concerns which have been voiced.

Clarifying the issues at hand:
There's been a lot said in this thread, and the challenge is sorting through the feedback to find the tangible issues we can action some form of change in. I agree that when it comes to the revenue figures you’ve seen, there are numerous potential causes, some of which we could have control over, some of which we couldn’t.

You outlined a few definitive potential issues, allow me to comment on how we might address these:

1. 3rd party "duplicate" suppression going too far. (malfunctioning 3rd party software):

What I understand about the client’s fraud protection feature, or duplicate suppression, is quite different from how it has been interpreted here. It is designed to block clear cases of repeat accounts for bonus abuse, which should in theory actually increase net revenue for affiliates.

Once this was highlighted as an issue that affiliates were concerned about, we began dialogues with the client to understand the feature, measure its potential impact, and discuss communication plan to provide transparency to affiliates. The client should be providing an update to the forum shortly.

Generally speaking, fraud protection is always going to be a sensitive topic, because by its nature complete transparency is impossible, but failure to disclose makes affiliates distrustful. Removing fraud protection completely is not an option, as fraud is a huge cost to operators world wide. I feel confident the client is doing their best to find a good middle ground.

2. Some mobile devices not being processed correctly (incompatible devices / malfunction IA software).

I’m highly doubtful that there are any problems with our tracking as a result of incompatible devices or software malfunction. As I’ve stated we depend on our tracking for our revenue streams, the same way affiliates do, and so we test across the major browsers, devices and geos. We have a QA department dedicated to this and we never launch a new client until they have been rigorously tested. Also, since we have multiple forms of tracking that essentially overlap to make sure the user is tagged (user agent id as well as cookie based tracking), we have extremely good coverage.

With that being said, if affiliates have concerns about our tracking, we always recommend they test as well, as this is the only way they will feel confident that tracking is working. You’ve stated that you feel the responsibility should be solely in our hands to test, but I’m not sure how we can test in such a way that it will instill confidence in affiliates.

Paul ?do you have a suggestion for how we could run demonstrate the results of our tests in such a way that it would eliminate affiliate doubt?

3. Client individuals taking advantage of editing facilities to boost the company profits (fraud).

Our clients are not allowed to do this, and for that reason our stats uploads are built as an automated feed, and that feed is actually audited by our QA team to confirm that it is accurate data before we set a client live. Some of our clients do a reconciliation at the end of the month, but the understanding is that they have communicated with affiliates as to what data needs to be adjusted and why. As discussed previously, the nature of a rev-share system requires a cultivated feed from the client’s database, as they are not allowed to share sensitive player data from the database to us nor to affiliates. This is not something that is unique to our system ?any rev-share system will have this same limitation.

4. General / other issues

Overall, one feedback that seems clear and actionable from the recent threads is that affiliates feel we are not doing enough to ensure that clients use our software in an affiliate-friendly way. To some extent, we feel that this is due to affiliates not seeing all the work that goes on behind the curtain, with our large dedicated account management team and software support team. Nonetheless, the management have agreed to take steps to further educate clients to best practices for program management and the potential risks of losing affiliate trust. If any affiliates would like to contribute to this process, please PM me or email me with your comments about what to include in these educational documents, and we will take all suggestions into consideration. The goal is to have these documents completed and delivered to clients over the next 6 weeks.

Taking Action to Support Affiliates:

We are not ignoring the feedback here nor washing our hands of issues related to client use of our software. You say that Income Access doesn't care about affiliates, but that has simply not been the case historically. For over 10 years we have been affiliate advocates and have a history of responding to affiliate feedback with action.

As further proof of this, we will be making a separate announcement regarding a change to our banner manager to reduce the misuse of the banner disabling function, which was implemented as the direct result of affiliate feedback here.

We hope you will consider our position as an intermediary looking to find win-win between operators and affiliates and see that we are doing our best to navigate this, promote honesty, integrity and transparency, and continue to build trust. Action may not always happen as fast as affiliates would hope, but neither are we standing still. It seems both unfair and unnecessary to make broad judgements about Income Access or all programs using our software based on issues you have had with a limited number of brands, especially when there are concrete ways we can address the existing problems and test new clients to prove that tracking and stats are accurate.

We look forward to your comments about the action steps suggested and any other concrete ideas on how we can address your concerns.

**Anthony-Coral** · 12 May 2015, 6:11 am

I wanted to respond on this thread to offer an explanation for the Coral Affiliate policies on duplicate player accounts.

I can confirm that duplicate removal does take place at Coral but this has not been implemented for some of the reasons suggested here.

The aim is to remove duplicate bonus hunters and those seeking out only enhanced odds offers. Although other companies may have a different procedure or software to find, block and merge duplicate accounts, at Coral we have the systems what we have so this is what I must work with.

Coral has pioneered the use of Enhanced Odds ‘Crazy Prices’ as an acquisition tool and this is now standard practice throughout the UK online betting market . This has seen huge growth in registrations but the concern is to manage the inflated acquisition costs this creates.

Without removal of duplicates in some form, sports affiliates and also Coral would be at the mercy of players creating ‘new’ accounts every single weekend and getting enhanced odds on ‘Man Utd to win a corner’ etc over and over again. For any hard working, active sports affiliates on a rev share deal this will drive down their chances of earning anything in a constant spiral of negative revenues.

The aim is actually to prevent the most active affiliates from being unfairly penalised by those players abusing our ‘New Customer Only’ offers.

I am open to the affiliates perspectives on how to improve the flags that trigger a duplicate. While we can't guarantee that changes will happen overnight, we want to work with you to make this affiliate program mutually profitable.

**justbookies** · 12 May 2015, 6:45 am

Originally Posted by HodgeyBoy

I wanted to respond on this thread to offer an explanation for the Coral Affiliate policies on duplicate player accounts.

I can confirm that duplicate removal does take place at Coral but this has not been implemented for some of the reasons suggested here.

The aim is to remove duplicate bonus hunters and those seeking out only enhanced odds offers. Although other companies may have a different procedure to block and merge duplicate accounts, at Coral we have what we have so this is what I must work with.

Coral has pioneered the use of Enhanced Odds ‘Crazy Prices?as an acquisition tool and this is now standard practice throughout the UK online betting market . This has seen huge growth in registrations but the concern is to manage the inflated acquisition costs this creates.

Without removal of duplicates in some form, sports affiliates and also Coral would be at the mercy of players creating ‘new?accounts every single weekend and getting enhanced odds on ‘Man Utd to win a corner?etc over and over again. For any hard working, active sports affiliates on a rev share deal this will drive down their chances of earning anything in a constant spiral of negative revenues.

The aim is actually to prevent the most active affiliates from being unfairly penalised by those players abusing our ‘New Customer Only?offers.

I am open to the affiliates perspectives on how to improve the flags that trigger a duplicate. While we can't guarantee that changes will happen overnight, we want to work with you to make this affiliate program mutually profitable.

I have been informed by your department that it is to stop CPA abuse, so it is not all about protecting affiliates but also about protecting Coral from abuse by affiliates. If CPA is the true primary objective then there is no need to use this on accounts that are not on a CPA deal.

Also one of my test accounts was suppressed, yet gets emails requesting it deposit. So this policy is not joined up at Coral. Referrals are being removed from the stats prior to upload but those actual player accounts are still treated as being 'live' by Coral, irrespective of whether they are duplicates or not.

Personally I think any mass manipulation of the raw data prior to upload is very disturbing, but getting beyond that issue, the key thing is "does the duplicate suppression software and month end reconciliation report only do what it is supposed to or is it over aggressive."

That is what I would like some reassurance about. That is the point at which you stopped answering my emails. Fortunately there is someone in your department who has now entered a dialogue with me and is providing some transparency, however there is no reassurance that the software does what it says on the tin. Even last month there was a major ****-up with it.

Unfortunately you, as head of affiliates, seem to be at the mercy of the department ("BI dept?") creating this software. Instead of giving the orders or helping them keep it clean, you just have to work with what they do (as you admit above). That too provides no reassurance that this software, which has proven errant to date, is working as you think it should.

PS: It's a real shame because you had a great affiliate program before this manipulation of data started.

**Anthony-Coral** · 12 May 2015, 7:12 am

One of its applications could indeed be to remove CPA fraud. However, at Coral we have always had proportionately very low numbers of CPA deals so manually auditing them for fraud is not too difficult a task.

The vast majority of our affiliates are on rev share deal and duplicate removal was introduced primarily to mitigate against the bonus abuse which negatively affects both the programme and any active affiliates.

**-Shay-** · 12 May 2015, 7:16 am

Originally Posted by HodgeyBoy

One of its applications could indeed be to remove CPA fraud. However, at Coral we have always had proportionately very low numbers of CPA deals so manually auditing them for fraud is not too difficult a task.

The vast majority of our affiliates are on rev share deal and duplicate removal was introduced primarily to mitigate against the bonus abuse which negatively affects both the programme and any active affiliates.

How then does this explain "justbookies" situation?

Again, he had entered into a test, created a player account, and said player account failed to appear in his affiliate statistics. Yet, to this day, he still gets promo emails to this account (the one that was filtered out).

If the duplicate suppression software was doing its job, one would think that the "test account" would have been closed.

I have yet to hear a logical explanation to this.

**justbookies** · 12 May 2015, 7:29 am

Originally Posted by -Shay-

If the duplicate suppression software was doing its job, one would think that the "test account" would have been closed. I have yet to hear a logical explanation to this.

The duplicate suppression software is only filtering affiliate data and has no job beyond that. So those filtered accounts could go on to be used for betting purposes for years to come, but the referring affiliate will see no benefit from that. That is why this software is so dangerous.

**-Shay-** · 12 May 2015, 7:31 am

Originally Posted by justbookies

The duplicate suppression software is only filtering affiliate data and has no job beyond that. So those filtered accounts could go on to be used for betting purposes for years to come, but the referring affiliate will see no benefit from that. That is why this software is so dangerous.

Then this is contrary to Anthony's original stated purpose of the filter.

**Anthony-Coral** · 12 May 2015, 9:00 am

Unfortunately, an affiliate department has its limitations. The responsibility for closing/merging accounts lies with Account Security Team in the UK. We can only advise them.

The research we have seen shows that by far the vast majority of duplicate accounts created only place a single bet and are used to take advantage of enhanced odds. If the Security Team are not quick enough then the loss to Coral of cost of that bonus abuser is borne by us. The cost does not shared with an affiliate so their revenue figure for the month is not driven further into the negative by a 'false' player.

**thebookiesoffers** · 12 May 2015, 9:11 am

in the interests of fairness I'd just like to say that brands using IA perform very well for me, in line with other companies using different software

**-Shay-** · 12 May 2015, 9:24 am

Originally Posted by HodgeyBoy

Unfortunately, an affiliate department has its limitations. The responsibility for closing/merging accounts lies with Account Security Team in the UK. We can only advise them.

The research we have seen shows that by far the vast majority of duplicate accounts created only place a single bet and are used to take advantage of enhanced odds. If the Security Team are not quick enough then the loss to Coral of cost of that bonus abuser is borne by us. The cost does not shared with an affiliate so their revenue figure for the month is not driven further into the negative by a 'false' player.

I'm pushing the fast forward button on this, as I have a few sets of questions to deduce up to here...

I'm the type of person that prefers transparency - the clearer, the better.

I would prefer to see a reference in the player data if a player has been "filtered". Instead of players disappearing or failing to appear, there should be some sort of "paper trail".

In the player report, Coral already shows registration date, first deposit date, country of origin, and player name --- which to be fair is far more information than other similar programs choose to share.

If a player is removed, or an account is closed, I would also suspect that this should appear on the report, as this affects the affiliate side of the equation as well. My favourite program (Lucky Jar) shows when an account is locked, closed, or anything of that sort. It eliminates most of the questions I have and if it doesn't, it triggers an open dialogue. It also prevents me from wondering if I'm being stolen from or if my trackers are working or if their software is soiling itself.

The way things are set up now with Coral - this stuff would happen behind the scenes (in secrecy). The affiliate is not included "in the know" and as a result, a high level of mistrust is cultivated and even more so when a test is run where the player does not show up in the report, but yet the marketing offers via email continue on.

**justbookies** · 12 May 2015, 9:56 am

Originally Posted by thebookiesoffers

in the interests of fairness I'd just like to say that brands using IA perform very well for me, in line with other companies using different software

This thread is nothing to do with IA, but Coral's filtering of the data before it reaches IA.

UPDATE: Ok, I thought it was the other duplicate suppression thread, so it did start off as being more general! But on that point I have the same experience as Gooner, for whatever reason they tend to underperform. One of the better ones was Coral until they introduced duplicate suppression. I don't know when it first came in but I first noticed the problems in August 2014.

**webanalysissolutions** · 12 May 2015, 1:35 pm

Originally Posted by HodgeyBoy

I wanted to respond on this thread to offer an explanation for the Coral Affiliate policies on duplicate player accounts.

I can confirm that duplicate removal does take place at Coral but this has not been implemented for some of the reasons suggested here.

The aim is to remove duplicate bonus hunters and those seeking out only enhanced odds offers. Although other companies may have a different procedure or software to find, block and merge duplicate accounts, at Coral we have the systems what we have so this is what I must work with.

Coral has pioneered the use of Enhanced Odds ‘Crazy Prices’ as an acquisition tool and this is now standard practice throughout the UK online betting market . This has seen huge growth in registrations but the concern is to manage the inflated acquisition costs this creates.

Without removal of duplicates in some form, sports affiliates and also Coral would be at the mercy of players creating ‘new’ accounts every single weekend and getting enhanced odds on ‘Man Utd to win a corner’ etc over and over again. For any hard working, active sports affiliates on a rev share deal this will drive down their chances of earning anything in a constant spiral of negative revenues.

The aim is actually to prevent the most active affiliates from being unfairly penalised by those players abusing our ‘New Customer Only’ offers.

I am open to the affiliates perspectives on how to improve the flags that trigger a duplicate. While we can't guarantee that changes will happen overnight, we want to work with you to make this affiliate program mutually profitable.

Interesting reading, but many affiliates will fail to grasp the concept of why you have to filter this data out as far down the line as the affiliate data feed to Income Access?

Many other bookmakers stop people duplicate registering completely for the most, then have jobs that constantly trawl their data warehouses looking for signs of duplicate accounts - not just the simple stuff - same address, same bank card etc - all of these things should be picked up as validation on the register at Coral registration form, but other things like betting patterns and even external checks by profiling people by their name, address, email address etc with external agencies.

All of these measures, if in place, would mean that by the time you need to start filtering the affiliate data feed you've probably picked up 98% of all dups. Why let them get through the front door, take the bonus and start betting, and even withdraw before you catch them?

I came across another bookie in the past - won't name them, but they were terrible at detecting fraud and duplicates, and ultimately with such small margins in the sports betting industry, if only a few duplicates get through the net, especially on the offers Coral put out, then your revenue is going to waver around zero, if not negative, which is what a lot of affiliates are experiencing, or certainly much lower revenues per click, player etc than other UK bookies.

It's difficult to start sending lots of registrations to Coral when you know that you might let other affiliates refer the same players, and then let duplicates through the door, as you just can't make a decent rev share out of this scenario when compared to other UK bookies who appear a lot more savvy at blocking duplicates when they knock on the front door.

**-Shay-** · 15 May 2015, 8:09 am

Looking into a new set of possible issues with my stats. Things "look" weird lately at the player level on certain players... Anyone else seeing anything "irregular" or "suspicious looking" (possibly incomplete) on their players at Coral?

**-Shay-** · 21 May 2015, 6:56 am

Might want to encourage Gala and Coral to rerun their stats for 19 May.

**-Shay-** · 27 May 2015, 6:05 am

Originally Posted by -Shay-

Might want to encourage Gala and Coral to rerun their stats for 19 May.

And Gala today.

Thread: What is Duplicate Supression?

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