Cleantech financiers suggest you "Save the world through changing your casino."

As part of their marketing strategy, online gambling companies pay money websites that direct customers their way. In online gambling, or any other web enterprise, that's usually called affiliate marketing. And affiliate marketers are not always looked at with the highest regard. But the principals of a new gambling affiliate site hope to shed a greener light on the affiliate marketing model by using 100% of the revenue generated to support renewable energy projects and environmental organizations.

Green Bet* says it exploits the affiliate marketing model to allow gamblers to direct a portion of the casino's profits to support worthy causes.  It works like this: the website contains links to online casinos and bookmakers. If you use a link to visit one of the online gambling sites, then create an account, 45% of the revenue made from that account will be paid to the Green Bet fund.

But Green Bet isn't a charity. 70 percent of the profits from the affiliate scheme will then be invested renewable energy projects like the Desertec Concept and the Green Tower, while the remaining 30 percent of their profits will be donated to charities like the World Wildlife Fund.

"The service you receive will be the same, the odds paid will remain the same. The only difference will be a share of the casino's revenue will go to support our chosen causes," Green Bet says on its website.

Green Bet says that if they can get just 1% of all online gamblers to switch their preferred casino via the new site, the project will raise $100 million annually for renewable energy projects and environmental groups non-profits.

While I don't necessarily advocate online gambling as a good use of your money, if you're going to do it anyway, you might as well do it knowing that a portion of your inevitable losses will be going to support worthy organizations like WWF and to developing utility-scale renewable energy projects.

*We do not receive any affiliate revenue from the casinos for having the Green Bet link, but now that we know how much casinos pay affiliates, maybe we should. -Ed.

via guardian.co.uk