In part one of this two-part blog, Ian Sims, the founder of Rightlander, a UK-based supplier of compliance tools and services, shared insights on his monitoring tool, regulatory challenges for affiliates and operators, as well as key factors driving the product’s evolution.

This second part dives into the most valuable scanning tools available through the platform, as well as operators’ reactions to emerging markets.

IA: From your perspective, what are the most valuable tools or reports available through Rightlander?

IS: The first report that we suggest all our clients start with is the "Life Changing Terms" report. This looks for affiliate or marketing content that suggests that gambling can improve a person's lifestyle. Although an essential report, it was also amongst one of the most difficult to develop.

Rightlander went through many versions of this report based on terms that clients and regulators provided or phrases we noticed commonly popping up in unethical content. Verticals that presently seem to have most of these issues are casino, lottery and forex, with bingo and tipsters not far behind.

The "Significant Terms" percentage accuracy report is also in high demand, as the feature can now search for multiple versions of these T&Cs, such as full text, space-restricted renditions and variations by offer or product.

Clients who go through UK audits can present a spreadsheet that demonstrates that these and expired bonuses are being monitored, which seems to be favourably regarded by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC).

Soon, Rightlander will release a new version of its interface which will allow for better management and data archiving.

IA: Does Rightlander offer any tools to help operators understand the reach/influence of individual affiliates?

IS: Yes, another tool that has proven successful, and which we are improving, is affiliate landscape mapping. Rightlander is constantly discovering new affiliate sites and social pages. Using our affiliate code tagging system allows clients to identify related content, thus creating a map of sites owned by individual affiliates. This is gradually being tied into reports to allow clients to select an affiliate tag or domain name and review other related sites.

IA: Rightlander is primarily known for its focus in the UK market. What kind of response has the product received in emerging markets such as the US and Sweden?

IS: Sweden’s regulations are starting to get clearer now that the market opened-up earlier this year. We have several clients receiving our custom reports in various territories and the "Swedish Compliance Signals” report, which displays pages that do not reach the regulator's basic requirements, is our most popular one in Sweden. Eliminating the use of expired bonuses is also in high demand in the region.

In Denmark and the Netherlands, the most popular request is to find local brands through language and/or site domain. There is still a degree of evolution in these countries, which will no doubt give rise to more transparency.

The US is very transparent. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) has been very clear for some time in that operators should not allow their brands to be promoted alongside unlicensed ones. Through one of Rightlander’s comprehensive reports, this content is now identifiable. It can be a challenge to find every instance but as with all our reports, we scan IP addresses within each state and are able to discover many of these sites.

Today, Rightlander is able to scan from a host of countries in Europe and as far and wide as Australia, Russia and Canada. We also scan numerous "infringing websites", most of which have been reported to us by the UK Metropolitan Police. In UKGC audits, this has been raised as an obligatory requirement for licence holders.

IA: Thanks for chatting with us, Ian. We wish Rightlander much success in 2019 and beyond!

For more information on Rightlander, please reach out to Ian.