Tropical Poker Affiliate Program Review
***Please note that since this review, Tropical Poker has now closed, and have unfortunately ran off with players money.***
Tropical Poker is one of the newer sites to start up in recent months. They offer a variety of freerolls, and have recently signed up Cindy Margolis as a representative for the poker room. Of all the latest sites to start up, Tropical Poker do have a lot going for them however they are a site that I am not promoting, and probably will never promote due to problems I experienced with them when they were starting up. First, let’s look at their stat sheet:
| Accepts US Players? | Yes - Except for Louisiana. |
|---|---|
| Commission: | Revenue Share - 25%-40%. |
| Rakeback: | Allowed. |
| Games Available: | Holdem, Omaha, 7 Card Stud, 5 Card Stud. |
| Casino Games: | None. |
| Offline Marketing Material: | None available. |
| Platforms: | Windows. |
| Payment Methods: | Neteller, Check, Player Account. |
| Sign Up Link: | N/A |
At the end of August I was approached by an associate who was working with Tropical Poker’s marketing department. Tropical wanted to work out a promotion with me, similar to the Instant Bankroll promotions you see at other sites where players would sign up with us and receive $100 to play with. This was something Tropical were looking to do long-term with other affiliates, however wanted me to test it out first. Their business model left a lot to be desired; they wanted to pay me CPA, and give the player $100 right off the bat. I immediately saw a lot of holes in this that would leave it open to abuse, and let them know that it would be better to sign up affiliates under revenue share for this plan, as it means affiliates will be targetting the right kind of markets, instead of just looking for an easy buck, not caring what sort of players they bring to the site. I also suggested that the free money be released incrementally with $25 after signing up, then after a certain amount of raked hands another $25 and so on until the player had received the full $100. They were agreeable to this.
We had some other plans in place, and I started getting a marketing budget set aside just for Tropical, and looking at places to market. I was initially told that everything would be set up within the next few days, so I was keen to get started on this excellent promotion. However, things started going downhill from there. I kept getting the run-around as the days of delay turned into weeks, with a variety of excuses as to why things weren’t up and running yet. People were out of town, conference calls kept getting delayed, the affiliate system had some “kinks”, a whole variety of excuses that kept delaying everything.
Finally, I tied down two of the employees for a conference call via Skype. I ran through my proposal and my plans for promoting the room, ironed out all the details then shipped the proposal off to the owner of the room, as per request. I was told that it would all be set up within 24 hours and we’d be able to get going, so I started finalizing everything with the places I was going to market the room at.
Then? Nothing. No response, they were never on Skype, I sent various e-mails and never got a response, and still haven’t to this day.
This is not to turn you completely off the program; this is just my personal experience from it. For all I know this was just a one-off, and Tropical Poker run an excellent affiliate program, however a reader requested I review this program and I have to be honest. I wasted a lot of time, effort and also some money working on promoting Tropical Poker, and so don’t see myself promoting them in the future.
If you are going to promote them then the only thing I can recommend is to be cautious; send some test players there first, make sure you get regular payments, pay attention to a lot of poker forums and see what people are saying about Tropical; heck ask in the chat what people think and get a first-hand experience. If you do promote Tropical or have had any experiences with them then I would appreciate your sending feedback to me at Dan@DealerDanGaming.com and I can post your experiences here, good or bad.
On November 30th 2006, the operations manager from Tropical contacted me in regard to this review. He wanted to clarify a few things, present his side and also mentioned the possibility of me giving them a second chance. I responded back with a very long e-mail, added some questions I had, and also stated that I am always willing to give a program a second chance, and what did they have in mind. As of December 13, they have not responded.
November 2007 Update: Tropical Poker is currently “down for maintenance”. Knowing the kind of people behind Tropical Poker, I expect this to end up in them never re-opening, and running off with players money. I strongly advise you remove any and all marketing materials that you currently have for Tropical.
February 2008: I was right 
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