Dealer Dan, pictured here with WWE Superstar Mick Foley, has been in internet marketing since 1996. He likes hugs, long walks on the beach, and making money while wearing his jammy jams. For more information, you can read all 
A common mistake I see from casino affiliates is that they’re always focused on attempting to get whales. Of course I can fully understand that – who wouldn’t want a player under their 40% revenue share tracker losing thousands of dollars on a monthly basis?
However I feel a lot of affiliates have a real misconception about casino whales, and just how to target them.
First, let’s look at what a whale actually is. Affiliates seem to think a whale is someone that’s playing $500 hands of Blackjack each and every day. In reality, a lot of online casino whales aren’t like that. The majority of whales who bet hundreds or thousands in Blackjack much prefer hitting up places like Las Vegas – and the gambling for big money is just part of the experience. It doesn’t help that a lot of online casinos just don’t accommodate to this type of player anywhere close to how the Bellagio or the Wynn would treat a high roller.
Therefore a big mistake that affiliates make is trying to appeal to the high dollar value – promoting $20,000 bonuses for high deposits, focusing on casinos maximum deposits, and creating sections of their sites dedicated to high rollers, or websites to target high rollers specifically.
While there’s nothing wrong with doing this – it’s just not the best thing to do when you’re going fishing for whales. In all honestly, unless you’re a high roller yourself it’s very hard to understand the high roller mentality. I’ve been in Vegas with friends who are betting $1,000 per hand, tipping $500 for a beer and spending money like they have an infinite money tree in their back yard. Even though I’ve been to Vegas with these people and been given the VIP treatment I still find it hard to understand just how their minds work.
When you’re writing an article which is targeted towards whales you need to try and get an idea of how they work. Look at what casinos offer high rollers, and pick only the cream of the crop when it comes to high roller casinos, revenue share be damned.
Even then however – you’re not going to get that many whales. The traditional whale is found more in land-based casinos than online casinos.
That’s not to say there aren’t online casino whales – they’re just a different type. Less common is the whale that deposits thousands of dollars at a time; more common is the whale that does multiple minimum deposits.
For example one of my whales at a casino deposits $25 at a time. $25 might not seem much, especially with a 30% revenue share at that casino which means just $7.50 commission per deposit. Yet that one player earned me over $1800 last month due to multiple deposits per day.
These days, those are the types of whales you are looking for. In all honestly, you don’t even WANT one of the traditional high roller whales. People look at the positives only which is thousands of dollars per month in commission. Yet there’s a huge negative to it too – when the high rollers win, they win BIG. And often I have found the high rollers are the ones that will actually withdraw, and not retract their withdrawal 24 hours later.
Believe me – I’ve got 3 affiliate program accounts right now which were decent $250-$500 a month earners over a period of about 12 months, which are now thousands of dollars in the red thanks to a high roller player hitting it big and cashing out to fund his next Atlantic City trip or whatever.
As for the minimum deposit whales – how do you actually get them? Answers can differ from affiliate to affiliate and operator to operator, however I’ve found that the most common small deposit whale is found playing slot machines, and I know numerous casino operators or affiliate managers who can confirm that. Video Poker is another game which seems to attract these sort of whales.
The problem is there is no tried and true method of actually attracting these whales because so many people that are interested in the same thing, are different types of gamblers. In the last year, I’ve had whales who have came in via my Farmer’s Market Slot Review, my Top 10 Gambling Songs article, and my article on How to deposit with a credit card, to list just three examples.
The purpose of this article is to point out that you really can’t go for the high rollers or whales – you’re better off appealing to every gambler possible. While you will get your fair share of $10 depositors who never return, you’ll also get a wide variety of other gamblers as well as quite a few whales.
Now in saying all that there is one method to getting whales which is already implemented in Vegas. Lots of high rollers when they go to Vegas utilize a casino host – basically someone who is going to show them a great time in Vegas, take them to whatever casinos they want and get them into the best parties.
As far as I know there is nothing like that online at the moment. I’m sure there’s an opening there – get to know high rollers, get to know casinos, and be able to get the high rollers set up with whatever they want. Bonuses, promotions, rewards etc – act as an intermediary, and work with the casino to bring in these big players.
Of course if you’re going to do that I’d recommend against just throwing up a website and hoping to get hits from the search engines. Instead focus more on networking both online and offline, getting to know the high rollers and understand what they are looking for in an online casino, then go about accommodating them.
In closing don’t focus on the whales – if you’re doing a good job in converting the casual gambler, then the whales will soon follow.
This article was written on March 28, 2011 however all articles are looked at on a monthly basis and updated to keep them relevant.
If you need to contact Graeme, please see his Contact Page. If you are an affiliate manager wanting promoted please see this page.
