Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. Examples include rewards sites, where users rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site. The industry has four core players: the merchant the network, the publisher and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third parties vendors. Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner. Affiliate marketing using one website to drive traffic to another is a form of online marketing. While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. , affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies. In the case of cost per mille/click, the publisher is not concerned about a visitor being a member of the audience that the advertiser tries to attract and is able to convert, because at this point the publisher has already earned his commission. This leaves the greater, and, in case of cost per view, the full risk and loss to the advertiser. Cost per action/sale methods require that referred visitors do more than visit the advertiser's website before the affiliate receives commission. The advertiser must convert that visitor first. It is in the best interest for the affiliate to send the most closely targeted traffic to the advertiser as possible to increase the chance of a conversion. The risk and loss shared between the affiliate and the advertiser. Affiliate marketing is performance marketing in reference to how sales employees being compensated. Such employees paid a commission for each sale they close, and sometimes are paid performance incentives for exceeding targeted baselines. Affiliates are not employed by the advertiser whose products or services they promote, but the compensation models applied to affiliate marketing are very similar to the ones used for people in the advertisers' internal sales department. The phrase, "Affiliates are an extended sales force for your business", which is often used to explain affiliate marketing, is not completely accurate. The primary difference between the two is that affiliate marketers provide little if any influence on a possible prospect in the conversion process once that prospect directed to the advertiser's website. The sales team of the advertiser, however, does have the control and influence up to the point where the prospect signs the contract or completes the purchase.

Pan

Pan is short for Panguingue

Playing Pan

Panguingue is a rummy-type game played with eight standard 52-card decks with the 8's, 9's, and 10's removed, for a total of 320 cards. No jokers are used. Cards in each suit rank king (high), queen, jack, seven, six, etc. with aces being low. The cards are dealt counterclockwise

Players strive to meld eleven cards in valid sets of three or more cards. There are two kinds of melds: a rope which must be string of cards of matching suits, squares consisting of the ranks 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Jack or Queen. Squares must be either all cards of different suits or all the same suit. Squares consisting of Kings or Aces qualify regardless of suit. There are no betting rounds in the game.

Each player is dealt 10 cards to meld into sets and sequences with certain cards having special values. Each player, in turn, draws either a card from the top of the remaining deck or from the top of an adjacent discard pile. This sequence of play continues until one player goes out with a total meld of eleven cards, including the card(s) just drawn. Melds (or spread) must be at least three cards, and it may be as many as eleven. The melds are classified as ropes and squares. The rope is any three cards in sequence of the same suit. A square is a set of three cards in the same rank and of different suits or of the same suit. All 3s, 5s and 7s are valle cards (cards of value). Cards of other rank are non-valle. Any three aces or any three kings form a set, regardless of the suit.

Kuhn poker

Kuhn poker is a simplified form of poker developed by Dr. Harold W. Kuhn. It is a zero sum two player game. The deck includes only three playing cards, for example a King, Queen, and Jack. One card is dealt to each player, then the first player must bet or pass, then the second player may bet or pass. If any player chooses to bet the opposing player must bet as well "call" in order to stay in the round. After both players pass or bet the player with the highest card wins the pot. Kuhn demonstrated that there are many game theoretic optimal strategies for the first player in this game, but only one for the second player, and that, when played optimally, the first player should expect to lose at a rate of −1/18 per hand.

In more conventional poker terms:

Each player antes 1
Each player is dealt one of the three cards, and the third is put aside unseen
Player One can check or raise 1
If Player One checks then Player Two can check or raise 1
If Player Two checks there is a showdown for the pot of 2
If Player Two raises then Player One can fold or call
If Player One folds then Player Two takes the pot of 3
If Player One calls there is a showdown for the pot of 4
If Player One raises then Player Two can fold or call
If Player Two folds then Player One takes the pot of 3
If Player Two calls there is a showdown for the pot of 4

Slot Machine Terminology

Bonus is a special feature of the particular game theme, which is activated when certain symbols appear in a winning combination. Bonuses vary depending upon the game. Some bonus rounds are a special session of free spins the number of which is often based on the winning combination that triggers the bonus, often with a different or modified set of winning combinations as the main game, and often with winning credit values increased by a specific multiplier, which is prominently displayed as part of the bonus graphics and/or animation. In other bonus rounds, the player is presented with several items on a screen from which to choose. As the player chooses items, a number of credits is revealed and awarded. Some bonuses use a mechanical device, such as a spinning wheel, that works in conjunction with the bonus to display the amount won.

Candle is a light on top of the slot machine. It flashes to alert the operator that change is needed, hand pay is requested or a potential problem with the machine.

Carousel refers to a grouping of slot machines, usually in a circle or oval formation.

Coin hopper is a container where the coins that are immediately available for payouts are held. The hopper is a mechanical device that rotates coins into the coin tray when a player collects credits/coins by pressing a Cash Out button. When a certain preset coin capacity is reached, a coin diverter automatically redirects, or drops, excess coins into a drop bucket or drop box. Unused coin hoppers can still be found even on games that exclusively employ Ticket-In Ticket-Out technology, as a vestige.

Credit meter is a visual LED display of the amount of money or credits on the machine. On video reel machines this is either a simulated LED display, or represented in a different font altogether, based on the design of the game graphics.

Drop bucket or drop box is a container located in a slot machine's base where excess coins are diverted from the hopper. Typically, a drop bucket is used for low denomination slot machines and a drop box is used for high denomination slot machines. A drop box contains a hinged lid with one or more locks whereas a drop bucket does not contain a lid. The contents of drop buckets and drop boxes are collected and counted by the casino on a scheduled basis.

EGM is used as shorthand for Electronic Gaming Machine.

Hand pay refers to a payout made by an attendant or at an exchange point cage, rather than by the slot machine itself. A hand pay occurs when the amount of the payout exceeds the maximum amount that was preset by the slot machine's operator. Usually, the maximum amount is set at the level where the operator must begin to deduct taxes. A hand pay could also be necessary as a result of a short pay.

Hopper fill slip is a document used to record the replenishments of the coin in the coin hopper after it becomes depleted as a result of making payouts to players. The slip indicates the amount of coin placed into the hoppers, as well as the signatures of the employees involved in the transaction, the slot machine number and the location and the date.

MEAL book Machine entry authorization log is a log of the employee's entries into the machine

Low Level or Slant Top slot machines include a stool so the player has sit-down access. Stand Up or Upright slot machines are played while standing.

Optimal play is a payback percentage based on a gambler using the optimal strategy in a skill-based slot machine game.

Pay line is a straight or zigzagged line that crosses through one symbol on each reel, along which a winning combination is evaluated. Classic spinning reel machines usually have up to nine pay lines, while video slot machines may have as many as one hundred.

Rollup is the process of dramatizing a win by playing sounds while the meters count up to the amount that has been won.

Short pay refers to a partial payout made by a slot machine, which is less than the amount due to the player. This occurs if the coin hopper has been depleted as a result of making earlier payouts to players. The remaining amount due to the player is either paid as a hand pay or an attendant will come and refill the machine.

Taste is a reference to the small amount often paid out to keep a player seated and continuously betting. Only rarely will machines fail to pay out even the minimum placed bet over the course of several pulls.

Display screen of a slot machine in tilt mode

Tilt Electromechanical slot machines usually include an electromechanical tilt switch, which makes or breaks a circuit if the machine is tilted or otherwise tampered with, and so triggers an alarm. While modern machines no longer have tilt switches, any kind of technical fault door switch in the wrong state, reel motor failure, out of paper, etc. is still called a tilt.

Theoretical Hold Worksheet A document provided by the manufacturer for all slot machines, which indicates the theoretical percentage that the slot machine should hold based on the amount paid in. The worksheet also indicates the reel strip settings, number of coins that may be played, the payout schedule, the number of reels and other information descriptive of the particular type of slot machine.

Weight count is an American term, referring to the dollar amount of coins or tokens removed from a slot machine's drop bucket or drop box and counted by the casino's hard count team through the use of a weigh scale.