Thousands of small-time Web site operators hoping to cash in on an online
casino's banner advertising scheme have found themselves deprived of payment and accused of
cheating.
The casino, Cyberthrill.com, lets
Web sites post its advertising banners and pays those sites 20 cents every
time a different user clicks on the banner within a 24-hour period.
But attached to the program are stringent rules, which the casino says
users are violating in droves.
As a result,
Cyberthrill has withheld payments and revoked the right to
participate from thousands of users. Those users--who by and large claim to
have followed Cyberthrill's rules--have taken to Internet newsgroups and
Web sites to complain and vent their accusations that Cyberthrill has taken
them for a ride.
Online gambling is expected to take off, according to a report issued last month by analyst firm Datamonitor. Revenues in 1998 are expected to reach $535 million, rising to $955 million in 1999 and $2.3 billion by 2000, the study said.
But Net gambling is not without legal sticking points: A pending bill, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, seeks to update the federal Wire Act to outlaw accepting and placing cash bets on the Net, with a few exceptions. Some states, such as Minnesota and Missouri, have filed charges against the owners of online casinos, which do business with residents via the Net.
"It...seems that Cybertrhill is a scam and that they are cheating thousands
of people who are promoting Cyberthrill and that they actually are not
paying," wrote one participant in the "alt.www.webmaster" newsgroup in a post
that is representative of many dozens, if not hundreds. "Without any
acceptable described reason [they] have closed my account and are not
answering any of my emails asking what is going on."
One Web site lists
unsigned testimonials from others who claim to have been swindled by the
casino, along with correspondence with casino representatives regarding an
account that was frozen repeatedly and never paid out.
Cyberthrill.com is an offshore betting company located in the Bahamas. It
is co-owned by unnamed companies and individuals and represented by the
Canadian firm Internet Entertainment,
which also handles the casino's marketing and banner advertising program.
Internet Entertainment spokesperson Jeff Thomas declined to identify the
casino's owners. The domain name is registered with a phone number
belonging to a Bahamian law firm that claims no relationship with or
knowledge of the gambling business.
Thomas characterized the banner advertising system as a huge success with
tens of thousands of participants. But the vast majority of those
participants are cheating, he said.
"Seventy-five percent commit some kind of fraud," Thomas said. "A lot of it
we forgive, and send some kind of warning. But about 30 percent are blatant
and repetitive abusers." Those users get their accounts
canceled and are not paid for the hits they generated, he said.
Under Cyberthrill's rules, cheating consists of altering its standard
banners, sending spam or posting unsolicited chat or newsgroup
messages with links to the casino, and creating Web pop-up ads with
those links.
According to Thomas, one user created a program that randomly generated
thousands of phony email addresses and sent them to the casino.
Thomas acknowledged the chorus of complaints sounding on the Internet, but
dismissed its importance. He conceded that the unexpected success of the
program had caused his company to fall behind by two weeks in processing
checks, and said many people would stop complaining once they finally got
paid.
"But most of the people who are complaining are people that are blatantly
cheating," he said. "Anyone who is honest with us is getting paid."
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Cyberthrill has withheld payments and revoked the right to
participate from thousands of users. Those users--who by and large claim to
have followed Cyberthrill's rules--have taken to Internet newsgroups and
Web sites to complain and vent their accusations that Cyberthrill has taken
them for a ride.
