Gambling Sites Paying Players for Posting Positive Reviews | Ethical?

[TwitchySeal]

Recently I found evidence of Betcoin paying their players privately to make positive reviews for their Casino in their own thread.  

This wasn't too surprising for most.  

However, I was surprised when a member of Managment the BetcoinPoker "Site Pro" defended their actions.

Here is what they offered the player by customer support ticket. (The player who made the post is a friend.  He gave me permission to share this information)

[Translated from English to Spanish by Skype]

Andrew Betcoin:
I will give you a daily ticket, but you must write a review about Betcoin and tell people why you enjoy playing at Betcoin in Spanish. This review will then be posted on a forum. Please do it here in this ticket first.

Andrew Betcoin:
Post in this forum is at the bottom in the answers and I'll give you a bonus ticket:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281850.1300

Full transcript, screenshot  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1322261.msg13937370#msg13937370


Here they are discussing it the next day in Betcoin Chat.

[Read from bottom to top]

[jacktheking]

Gambling Sites Paying Player for Posting Positive Reviews - Alright and no one would say much anything about it.

Gambling Sites Paying Player for Posting Positive Reviews - Not a right thing to do.

[ranochigo]

This is a form of bribery and is definitely not ethical at all. Users shouldn't be paid to do positive reviews at all, it would just mislead users in thinking that majority of the users enjoys gambling at the website. It would only be right if the user is requested to write their own honest opinion about the site. This can't be detected easily though, gambling sites can still privately contact users for positive reviews.

[cryptosmoker]

Pretty shitty thing for any business to do.

To openly admit it and call it "common sense" and "generous" is special kind of evil.

[Herbert2020]

well, it is obviously a wrong thing to do. some of the campaigns suggest their users to leave a feedback on their user trust or in the announcement thread but forcing it is wrong.

and worst of all is paying them to leave feedback, because in that case all those feedback become worthless even if they are legit business.

[shintosai]

in my own opinion, unethical way to promote he site but it is still owner rights to do for his business, we can admit that players reviews will attract many customers that's the way gambling was made. no offense to anyone but for me they just need to do whatever is necessary to continue business.

[freakying99]

I have mixed feelings for this one cause there have been multiple giveaways from Stunna's side and anyone who wishes to claim should say "I love Primedice" or something similar even if they don't love PD or hate it cause they lost many coins.It is somewhat a lie.

I guess this is something which should not be encouraged but if the users are doing it already then they could be rewarded for their loyalty for sure.

[TwitchySeal]

It's something common is business world, company gives something to anyone who wants to give positive review to their service or product.
I think it's not ethical, but forms of bribery. But, most reviewer don't care about it.

Don't trust positive review, unless it's written by trusted people or looks legit.

I have mixed feelings for this one cause there have been multiple giveaways from Stunna's side and anyone who wishes to claim should say "I love Primedice" or something similar even if they don't love PD or hate it cause they lost many coins.It is somewhat a lie.

I guess this is something which should not be encouraged but if the users are doing it already then they could be rewarded for their loyalty for sure.

I think Stunna just asked them to said that in giveaway thread/pages, so i think there's no real impact.

I think like most things, paying for reviews is not black and white. 

In New York City, for example, the restaurant industry is super cut throat and everyone always checks yelp.A few bad reviews when barely have any to begin with could drop their ave star rating and nobody would even bother to check and see that they are new, this could actually cost millions of dollars.

If they give away a few drinks or meals in exchange for a review to get them going I wouldn't have a problem with that.

I also don't have issue with stunna asking for "I Love PD" other than the fact he's basically paying his players to spam.

However the Betcoin.ag is pretty much as unethical as possible even without considering the fact that they are really just using these reviews to bury some very serious allegations against them instead of disputing or responding to them directly.

Example Review From OP (if anyones interested in context):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281850.msg13933398#msg13933398

Other suspicious Reviews:

My Experience At Betcoin.ag, Username- KayaMan
  Figured I would post about my experience at betcoin.ag so you all know what to expect when you decide to try it out for the first time. First of all, betcoin.ag has 4 main categories of gambling, Poker, Casino (slots and card games etc), sports betting, and dice. I only have experience with two of these categories so I will mostly be writting about my experience with the categories which I am familiar with, which are poker and casino (slots). Maybe one day I will get more familiar with dice and sports betting and can inform you about those categories once I know more about them, but until then I will just stick with what I know.

I am going to start with talking about my experience with betcoin poker since it is my favorite part of the website, I love the slots also but nothing  can beat betcoin poker. I've played on a couple of poker sites in my day, but I always find myself coming back to betcoin for many different reasons. Betcoin poker seems to have the best of everything, for example, the overall layout of the poker rooms just has a nice, simple feel to it that is just comfortable to play in. Also they have the best freerolls  that I have ever seen on a poker site, they offer freerolls all day everyday, and all night. I've also had some pretty decent luck with their freerolls, having won a couple so far, they are hard to win though, but only because so many people play them, but that doesn't mean that they are impossible to win, just gotta know how to play and you stand a chance at winning, which is pretty awesome. Speaking of freeroll tourneys, their regular paid tourneys are awesome also, i play them all the time, and they have a wide variety of them so if you want to only pay $0.10 to enter a tourney, they usually have that option available, along with $100 tourneys where you can win thousands of dollars. In my experience with the regular tourneys, i have won 4 so far, and ive only been playing on this site for a little over a month now, have won over 100mbtc twice now(those tourneys only  costed me 4mbtc to enter, won another 50mbtc for winning another tourney (which only costed me around 1mbtc to enter, or less) & the last tourney I won 20mbtc ( costed me around .5mbtc to enter), its very exciting to win a poker tournament on this site, and literally the second that the tourney is over your winnings are credited to your account, which if you wanted to you could withdrawal immediately. I also love playing in the regular poker rooms, you have a good chance of winning a good amount of btc in them, but there is also a chance of losing a good amount of btc here also, just gotta play smart and confident and you should be okay personally, I have played hands where I have won up to 100mbtc in one hand. I have also lost the same amount in one hand. Lol. But that's okay, gambling wouldn't be gambling if you would win every hand. So overall I've had really good experience with betcoin poker, it's my favorite poker site by far, and I will continue to play betcoin poker probably for a long time.

I have also had really good experience with betcoins casino, don't play it as often as I play poker but I have played the slots a decent number of times. The first experience that I recall from betcoin slots was definitely a good experience, I had deposited some btc onto my account to play poker with and in return betcoin gave me a 100% 1st deposit casino bonus, a 50% 2nd deposit bonus and a 25% 3rd deposit bonus. Anyways, I decided to try my luck out on a certain slot, had started with a casino bonus of 25mbtc, by the time I had finished their bonus withdrawal requirments I had won 300mbtc. Was really stoked about that, before that happened I thought that online slots were all impossible to win anything on, but after I turned 25mbtc into 300mbtc, I realized I was definitely wrong with thinking that, and I started playing betcoin slots more often after that lol. Another time, I had received a 10mbtc bonus for something, don't remember how I got the bonus, anyways, I ended up passing the bonus requirements and 110mbtc was credited to my account. So now it is easy for me to admit that i love their slots. Haha.

In conclusion, betcoin is, in my opinion, the best online casino period, love betcoin poker, love the slots, oh yeah and I forgot to mention how awesome betcoin support is! They are very quick at replying to you and helping you with any problems you may have, or answering any questions you may have, I've had times when support would give me casino bonuses just to make me happy, and it did make me happy, lol. Best online support by far. I'm trying to think about anything I could complain about but betcoin is an overall awesome site and to be honest, I can't think of anything to complain about. Lol. I'd recommend anyone who is looking for a good site to gamble on to check out betcoin.ag.

-KayaMan

Wow, thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review and feedback.  We will remain committed to making Betcoin.ag a great destination for you to play.  We have many new innovations coming and we are very thankful that you are playing with us. 

Hi,

I wanted to share my experience at Betcoin.ag. I first discovered Betcoin.ag close to 2 years ago after SWC went down. Since then, I exclusively use Betcoin.ag even after SWC re-emerged. They have a wide selection of table games and generally have 300+ players online, even in the mornings. I feel the administration of betcoin.ag is solid as they have employed top-notch customer service representatives that will go out of their way to help you with any problems or special requests.

In addition, Betcoin.ag offers a great rewards program, including points that can be converted into poker chips, They also offer a customer loyalty program where you can earn more points, rakeback, bet-back, and loss-back. I believe the system goes from Bronze III to Master. I am currently a Silver III member.

Beyond that, the best parts about betcoin.ag are the very quick and no-hassle deposits and withdrawals.

We thank you for sharing your story and appreciate you playing with us.  We thank you for updating your post as we have great respect for our competitors and their management teams.  

[Pursuer]

paying users to leave positive review is just wrong. and I see it as a red flag for possible scam.

but there is another way which is being used by many services and that is encouraging their users to leave their opinion as review of their service whether it is bad or good. and as for payment it is more of bounty and giving away prizes for example to the most thorough review.
although this might also seem bad, sometimes it is necessary to force people to leave you some review otherwise your topic will be left empty since people are lazy and will not leave a simple comment unless they want to complain.

[plost24]

the only think that gambling site paying players for posting positive reviews is that this site have a bad reputaion he scamed many players in the past or the site is prepering for a big scam for all users

[SFR10]

As long as their asking users to post a review regarding their services (bad or good base on experience) then there's no harm on that but the moment they ask for positive/fake reviews from someone in order to improve their image, then that's a NO-NO for me and should be considered an act of dishonesty.

[Bitinity]

Paying people to give positive review is not ethical imho, but it is a usual thing in this gambling industry. Positive review that has been made just because there is a reward is not a honest review.

[Bitinity]

They paid me and i have real proof i also have proof of how they cheated me and lied and stole money saying it was my fault but it was there software that errored. Im only there because of the free wallet for poker on wpn lol

If you have the proof, so show it here. It would help OP to support his accusation against the site..

[TwitchySeal]

They paid me and i have real proof i also have proof of how they cheated me and lied and stole money saying it was my fault but it was there software that errored. Im only there because of the free wallet for poker on wpn lol

First you should finish what you said you would in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1320445.msg13494363#msg13494363

Also, if you dont want to share something, don't talk about it.  If you do , then just share it.

Otherwise it looks like you're just trying to get get betcoin to give you something in exchange for keeping a secret from everyone else.

Not in all caps though and turn down the crazy imo

[mtnsaa]

I think it's ethical from the gambling site POV, if you really don't feel like they are providing a good service and you lie, then you are the one who should hold responsible. The problem with these kind of offers is when they demand only a positive review upfront, not any kind of feedback. If that was the case I could agree that could be a little unethical.

[cryptosmoker]

I think it's ethical from the gambling site POV, if you really don't feel like they are providing a good service and you lie, then you are the one who should hold responsible. The problem with these kind of offers is when they demand only a positive review upfront, not any kind of feedback. If that was the case I could agree that could be a little unethical.

I think there are certain conditions for this to be ethical. If the gambling makes offer public so people are aware and they only ask for a honest review (not a good or bad one).  Then even if player is unhappy and leaves bad review, they should still get reward offered.

I think it's ethical from the gambling site POV, if you really don't feel like they are providing a good service and you lie, then you are the one who should hold responsible. The problem with these kind of offers is when they demand only a positive review upfront, not any kind of feedback. If that was the case I could agree that could be a little unethical.

I disagree if they ask user to make good review.

Paying someone to do something unethical is not ethical.

In this example casino not only said "good review" they asked to see it first so they could approve what should be someones opinion first.

I will give you a daily ticket, but you must write a review about Betcoin and tell people why you enjoy playing at Betcoin in Spanish. This review will then be posted on a forum. Please do it here in this ticket first.

[Glucose]

Come on. Everybody does it. Business is business.

Is it more ethical to pay for Sig campaign ? Neither of it is really ethical. It's just communication and promotion. And everybody is aware of it.


And to be perfectly honest : as long as their service is good and legit I don't mind if people are paid to make a good review.
I gave their site a try and it's really good (I tested the poker tournaments).

[TwitchySeal]

Come on. Everybody does it.

No, they don't.

Business is business.

Dishonest business is not honest business though.

You don't see the difference between paying someone publicly to "wear" an advertisement vs paying someone privately to leave a personal review?  Really?

And to be perfectly honest : as long as their service is good and legit I don't mind if people are paid to make a good review.

If they were honest and provided good service to all, there would be no need to pay for good reviews.  (You may notice this particular paid review also served as a way to push serious recent allegations to the next page.) [were talking about Betcoin.ag now, in case anyone isn't following]

I gave their site a try and it's really good (I tested the poker tournaments).

They are really good at some things, yes.  Lying, stealing, ignoring criticism...wait never mind, they aren't really good at anything actually.

[croato]

Paying ppl for positive reviews is not nearly close to be ethical and i would stay away from site which do that.

[aardvark15]

In a way it's not ethical, but that's the way all TV commercials are done.  Celebrities are paid to promote products or services.  I'm sure that most of them would not be promoting them unless they were paid to do so.  In that sense, it's just as ethical as all other paid promotions.