GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 43 - February 2019

GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES about A little bit more Aksana Radaman She is 35 years old Belarus photo by karp5/shutterstock; As ian food photo by karp5/shutterstock Her sites are 365bettingtips.com betunion24.ru topbkonline.ru She is living in her hometown of Minsk, Belarus i Her favorite food is Asian Her favorite book is My Master, by Parthasarathi Rajagopalachari books are fully legalized in Russia, and my sites can partner with them legally. Even bwin has officially entered the Russian mar- ket. I’m very excited about this. What makes your sites unique? How do you help them stand out from the competition? My team works very hard to offer our visitors one of the best services. My site betunion24.ru runs one of the best fair competitions every month, where our members publish their forecasts and win real money. Now, my team is developing a new script for our competitions, which will be very functional and useful both for participants and for visitors. We have many other plans, but for now they are secret. We have an online chat on our website, where our members like talking to each other. They even watch sports events to- gether through the chat. For me and my team, it’s very important to have a very solid reputation in the Rus- sian-language market. How do you decide what sportsbooks to promote? Usually I ask my adminis- trators when I need to decide whether it’s worth promoting a sportsbook or not. I know nothing about sports betting, really any type of sports, except kung fu. Moreover, sports betting is not interesting to me at all, but I have my own advisors. These guys are professional bettors. They know everything about sports betting, so they know bettors’ needs very well. Do you ever use freelancers or con- tractors for any part of your busi- ness? Previously, I was a one-woman shop. I used freelancers for some part of my business, but usually I worked alone. It was a big mistake, and I had to close all my casino sites. Now, I have two adminis- trators, one software engineer, and a girl who helps my first administrator and also will do social media work. They all work full-time on my sites. Also, I had an SEO manager, but he was not a part of my team; he was a freelancer. I prefer to have own specialists on my team who are ready to work full-time on my sites. Do you gamble online? What about in brick-and-mortar casinos? No, I don’t gamble, neither online nor offline. But I had some bad experiences in forex trading. I prefer to work fair, and I don’t find easy ways of earning money. And I don’t find gambling enjoyable for myself. It’s just business for me. How often do you get to see and in- teract with other people in the indus- try? Do you attend any conferences? I talk to other people in the industry very rarely. The last six years were very difficult for me, and time for me has become very important. That’s why I don’t spend too much time on forums. I don’t spend too much time talking to other people, and I don’t really attend conferences. Now I don’t need it; maybe later I will have an- other view. I have several webmasters, and sometimes I talk to them on Skype. What traits do you look for in an af- filiate manager? How about in an affiliate program? An affiliate manag- er must not be annoying. He or she must be tactful, calm and always in touch. An affiliate program must have detailed and correct statistics, fast payments without delays, reliable brands and, of course, fair T&Cs without hidden conditions. Is the GPWA still as useful to you as when you were a newer affiliate? I’m not active on the GPWA due to my business, but sometimes I use it and it’s still useful for me. Of course, when I was a newer affiliate, the GPWA was my home, my school and my university. I also used other gambling webmaster forums, but the GPWA was and still is No. 1 for me. And when I need to find some information or any answers to my questions, I use only the GPWA. What do you like best about the in- dustry? The industry allows me to have a high-paying job that doesn’t require full time. I’m so far away from gambling, but I like to manage my sites and organize the work of my team. If you could change one thing about the industry these days, what would it be and why? I used to face difficulties, so I don’t know what I could change in G P W A t i m e s . o r g 54