Status of: http://www.joesjackpots.com/

Hi ODP editors, this is my first post to a directory or search engine forum of any kind. I'd like to know the status of my submitted site: http://www.joesjackpots.com/
The category is: http://dmoz.org/Games/Gambling/Casinos/Browser_Based/J/
I submitted the site on February 12, 2003 and I received this referring url visit on my tracker on February 26, 2003:
http://dmoz.org:8080/editors/editcat-unrev.cgi?cat=Games/Gambling/Casinos/Browser_Based/J&chainsaw=1
Thanks for your time, and keep up the good work.
Sincerely, Malcolm. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

The Browser_Based category is for sites offering unique online casino wagering on the sites themselves. It's not for portals or for affiliates of casinos. We only list the main casino entity, not affiliates. In this case the gambling federation has an ODP listing. You can see the ODP gambling guidelines here:
http://dmoz.org/guidelines/gambling/

Hi Steve:

Thanks for your reply. I understand your point concerning the software needing to be on the site. I submitted the site on the basis of each of the final sentences as stated in the following guidelines:

Affiliate Sites: Sites that (for example) offer products or services provided by another company and make a small margin on the sale. These are sometimes called reseller or franchise sites. They may seem to have unique content, but the product descriptions and/or games come from elsewhere. In general do not list affiliate sites unless the affiliate has strong, high quality content of its own that end-users will find really useful.

Online Casinos: There's a lot of these sites submitted in the Gambling branch every day. Lot of these sites are download-only casinos. Such sites are only offering a downloadable software and in 99% of the cases, the software offered is already offered on another site already listed in the directory. Therefore, no new content is added to the directory and these sites should be deleted unless they offer other unique content that could justify a listing.

JoesJackpots.com offers totally unique textual content that is not found on Gamblingfederation.com and is created specifically to be of use to the visitor. This includes slots tips, terms, myths, books for further reference, and the history of slot machines. This will not be offered on gamblingfederation.com .

I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely, Malcolm.

Unfortunately you are in a catch-22 sort of situation. If there is gambling on the site, it must be submitted to the Browser_Based or Sports/Online categories; but we won't list affiliate casinos. You can't get a topical listing because you offer gambling on the site; you can't get a casino listing because you are an affiliate.

If we were to list every affiliate casino out there we would have literally thousands and thousands which would be of no value to anyone. If we were to allow sites with decent or even great content have topical listings, then every affiliate casino would use that as a means to get a listing, and we would have gambling-on-the-site sites spread around every category, which would also have very negative effect on the Directory quality. So, something has to give, and so the combined effect of no casino affiliates and no gambling on topical sites out weighs the single point of having quality content on an unlistable site. (I didn't check out the content so I don't know if it is good, great, or otherwise.) Sorry, but you could have Shakespeare on the site and as long as it was an affiliate casino it couldn't be listed.

Hi Steve:

Thanks for the reply once again. I completely understand your point of view and that you would not want to be in a situation where affiliate casinos would use having content as an excuse to gain a listing. What I'm trying to understand is why the following statements exist in the gambling guidelines:

"In general do not list affiliate sites unless the affiliate has strong, high quality content of its own that end-users will find really useful."

"Therefore, no new content is added to the directory and these sites should be deleted unless they offer other unique content that could justify a listing."

You mention that since the site is an affiliate site, it is excluded for that reason only, and that it seems to not even merit looking at the content, when the above statements appear to say otherwise. Why not say: "no affiliate sites under any circumstances"? Why do the above statements exist, which was the reason for my submitting in the first place? This would have saved both of us time.

I also wonder about the situation where many casinos offer the same games. For instance, if two sites offer the exact same games, as long as they are downloading software from their own domain, does that make them eligible for consideration into the directory as opposed to both of them downloading from a third party? Do the games themselves have to be different for each site, such as no two sites can have 9 line slots? I'd like to get this right.

Sincerely, Malcolm.

"In general do not list affiliate sites unless the affiliate has strong, high quality content of its own that end-users will find really useful."

While I guess it isn't totally explicit, this line is refering to portal-type sites. Notice that the "Affiliate Sites" is a different paragraph than the "Online Casinos" paragraph. Notice that the online casinos paragraph language is stricter than the affiliate sites paragraph.

ODP would like to list unique, stand alone online casinos. Beyond that I wouldn't want to get too specific because there are so many little things that could be seen as contrary to a very strict definition. Obviously many online casinos offer "blackjack". That doesn't disqualify all of them because they have a non-unique aspect.

Hi Steve:

Again, thanks for the reply. So from what I understand from your postings, even if I were to have everything stand-alone on my site, with download links coming from my site, etc., and in no way linked to any other site, because the software offered is exactly like another software offered on another site, even though the additional topical content on my site is totally unique and original which would make the overall view of the site unique, the site would not be considered solely on the basis of the software being the exact same as on another listed site, despite the additional unique content. In other words, the software itself must be unique, and not found on any other listing, meaning its contents are not exactly the same as another software. From your most recent posting, I understand that even though two sites may offer the same games, there are a number of other issues such the quality of the games, etc. to consider. This to me would mean that a unique software is a software that has different interface displays, graphics, etc. from any other software, even though the games might be the same as other softwares. Do I have it correct?

If the above guidelines are correct, then I will be able to conform to those guidelines by re-doing the software and re-submitting my site, rather than it be a time-wasting exercise for both for you and I.

Sincerely, Malcolm.

We will list unique online casinos. This is not a particularly easy task because non-unique, affiliate, pseudo-casinos generally attempt to pretend they are stand-alone. You are affiliated with an entity where apparently all the affiliates connect to the same server, have the same odds, and use the same RNG. The Gambling Federation is the unique entity. We certainly can't dig down deep anough with every submission to see if the support and financial processing and bells and whistles of all the software is 100% unique, but we can see that if the Gambling Federation ceased to exist tomorrow, so would your site (and all the other affiliates). This is not true of the sites we want to list, where they do most everything themselves are are not dependent on an affiliate relationship.

Hi Steve:

All right, I now understand where you're coming from. So I would have to create and own the software and be the starting point or main website rather than Gamblingfederation.com in order to be considered a unique entity from them or any other site. At least I know now what you're looking for in a unique entity the next I submit a site in this field. Although I am disappointed that the site doesn't meet the criteria and that the ODP visitors will not be able to gain benefit from the comprehensive tips, definitions, etc. on joesjackpots.com unlike other major directories who now do, I appreciate your responses regarding clarifying this issue. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely, Malcolm.

The basic point is just that ODP doesn't list some kind of sites. besides affiliate casinos we also don't list "gambling directories", there just is no category for those. I suppose I might be being overly helpful here, but if you are just dying to be listed in the directory... while ODP also doesn't list doorway sites, there is nothing stopping you from moving your content pages to a separate domain and then having some links to joesjackpots. The content would have to overwhelm the links and not the other way around. If you had 1000 pages of great content and one single link to your casino that obviously would be no problem to list (assuming the content was original and not gibberish), but if you had one page of content and 1000 links to your casino that would never be listed. Frankly though I think you are way better off keeping the good content on your casino site. Good luck.

Hi Steve:

I understand the differences now. There has to be a dominant theme to a site, where textual content on a particular subject will outweigh other subjects, such as links to a casino. This would make it easier to categorize the site. I'll consider your option for placing focussed content on another domain as the main theme with a small number of links to a casino. It would be nice to obtain a listing in ODP and give your visitors the benefit of the content. Thank you for your postings. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Sincerely, Malcolm.