Several UK retail giants have severed ties with a Malta-licensed affiliate that was offering customers the chance to gamble on winning their shopping after the scheme was criticised in sections of the media over the weekend.
A host of leading UK retail websites including Amazon, Marks & Spencer, Asda and Selfridges signed up with recently launched “winmarket” Yipiii. The affiliate offers registered customers the chance while browsing retail websites to either “shop” or “play” for the chance to win items by placing a £1 stake on a roulette-style wheel, with losing customers offered the stake back either as a discount off what they played for or anything else they buy through Yipiii.
The business model of Yipiii, that operates under a Class 1 gaming licence issued by the Lotteries and Gaming Authority of Malta (LGA), works on a performance-marketing basis, whereby stores only pay commission on traffic generated by Yipiii that converts into transactions on their websites.
However, following criticism from the the Daily Mail over the weekend that the retail giants were helping legitimise gambling through partnering with Yipiii, a campaign that garnered the support of UK business secretary Vince Cable who called the scheme “disturbing”, M&S, Asda, Debenhams and Boots all announced they had removed Yipiii from their affiliate programmes.
Several retailers, including Debenhams, said they had terminated the business relationship once they had become aware how Yipiii’s business model worked, despite widespread publicity in the UK in recent months in mainstream media such as the Daily Mirror, The Independent and even The Mail itself, that had positively reviewed Yipiii less than two weeks earlier, commenting that “if Yipiii could achieve critical mass it could prove to be genuinely revolutionary.”
Well this is quite odd.. I had heard of Yipiii about a month ago from thisismoney, where they said it was the way forward so i began using it, it waqs fun and I won a few prizes. Now i just googled it to see other opinions and it seems it was targeted by the Mail on Sunday to “protect” its readers- by telling them lies as they admitted a week later! then again Mail readers should really be protected against themselves! I would try yipiii, youi’ll see that it works! I love it!