The Grand Prive Casino Group recently shut down their affiliate program. However, they continue to run their casinos and profit from the players their webmaster partners sent to them in the past. They have cut their “partners” out of the deal they made with them, and are keeping all the profits!
Webmasters should be informed and take the action they feel is best. Players, do you really want to trust people like this with your deposits or your winnings?
If there seems to be a little more action than usual on Ultimate Bet these days, it’s because a lot of players have been given new cash with the promise “this time we won’t cheat you out of it.” Donkey Bomber got a rebate of about $1,400 — see, Tom, the economy is already looking up, as you just got back what you lost to me on the presidential election — which showed up unexpectedly in his account along with an email with a bunch of legal documents attached. That’s small potatoes compared to the couple hundred-k that Josh Arieh supposedly got refunded.
(If you were someone who unknowingly lost money to the cheating, wouldn’t you love to study the replays of the hands where your action seemed to go bizarrely awry?)
Further reports say at least one of the above-mentioned refundees has been playing with it, and winning a lot. Considering that most new players on UB clearly haven’t done some basic searching on the internet, it’s plausible that the games here are particularly soft these days.
I really wanna believe what Annie Duke says about the fantastic security now in play at UB … and heck, beyond playing there, might Pokerati actually be able to make some affiliate bucks off any pimpage? For now, of course, all we’ve got to go on giving necessary reassurances is an AP/UB infomercial explaining it all that has since been taken down once people actually started to see it.
Congressional Hearings on UIGEA… Barney Frank Heads to the Hill…
We all know our friend Barney Frank isn’t shy about speaking his mind, calling UIGEA the “stupidest”law ever passed. Now, he’s taking his straight talk about the law before Congressional Committees on the issue. See what was said!
Coverage of the Amsterdam Conference… Reporting from Amsterdam!
We’re hear and we’re causing trouble! See our exclusive report from the Casino Affiliate Convention, and where J. Todd has been having to spend the night!
There are some in the European Union who are not at all happy with last week’s announcement of a deal to compensation over the online gambling ban. In fact, it looks like the US may have even mislead the EU on what the deal was about
This could help our industry stay on life support a bit longer… and we’re not dead yet!
Antigua gets $21 Million and Piracy Rights…
The World Trade Organization has decided to allow Antigua to recover $21 million in damages by violating US copyrighted products, just like the APCW predicted in November of 2006!
Antigua was asking for $3.4 billion, and the award is well below that. So can a measly $21 million make a difference at all? Maybe…
Germans Give EU the Finger…
Germany has decided to ban internet gambling as of January 1st, 2008. They say that they have to protect their monopoly, and they expect the EU Court of Justice to come after them… and they don’t care.
Didn’t see this one coming … wonder what’s behind the move. Perhaps Brunson just learned about superaccounts?
Excerpts from an email sent by the Doyle’s Room Affilliate and Sales Director:
It gives me great pleasure to inform you that DoylesRoom.com is back in the USA Market. Commencing October 19, 2007, all US-players are welcomed to enjoy our redesigned, faster and better poker tables.
DoylesRoom.com US-players that moved to Full Tilt will be allowed to re-access their existing account. The affiliate referral code will remain the same and will continue to track their play.
This change will not affect our other projects with the Canada, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America markets, as we are committed to work closely with ALL our affiliates.
During the past 6 months our affiliates department has been working on new tools for the affiliates, including special promotions and a brand new member’s area. If you have not seen our new affiliate interface, we encourage you to login to your account. Also, we have been working to improve our poker client and we added new features and games for all your players.
Not to make it all about blogging, but poker players should be proud of the “citizen journalism” at work in this case. When “former” chief operators of a company are allegedly the ones pegged as playing with “superaccounts” … that clearly can’t be a good thing. Absolute looks to have done themselves in here. Short-term greed catches up with the offenders. This page now seems like a sadly ironic case of Strong Means Weak.
So as the evidence against Absolute becomes more and more solid, it raises a lot of other questions, including:
Will anyone go to jail? In an unregulated environment can anyone go to jail?
What other sites might be engaging in similar activities?
How can we trust that any particular site is not?
Will politicians in the United States see this as an example of why online poker needs to be regulated, or will it be their case for why it needs to be more comprehensively banned?
Will UB pros — Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke specifically — speak out on the matter? And/or will they leave Ultimate Bet?
Will major online affiliates — such as CardPlayer, PokerNews, and PokerListings, for example — stop sending players to Absolute?
Big questions for online poker. How different folks with a vested interest in the answers react to this situation will tell us a lot about what kinda players we really are dealing with in this biz.
UPDATE: PokerListings is currently refusing to send players to Absolute and Ultimate Bet:
PokerListings.com has temporarily suspended the listing of the Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet poker rooms as a result of serious problems with both historical and current payments due PokerListings for services rendered. We are aware that our decision not to list these two brands may be an inconvenience, but as a trusted guide and resource, we do not believe it is appropriate to continue listing them.
(Wonder if youwannapoker.com will even read this before they gank it.)
I had pretty much forgotten about the abundance of poker content thieves out there — was just gonna keep doing my thing and not let them bring me down. But then I read Gary Carson’s blog … and he reminded me that really, while maybe we can’t stop this practice outright, that doesn’t mean we should stand idly by as our “good friends” at Full Tilt continue to profit off the “work” of known internet thieves.
I’m being kinda serious: I think it might be time for a good-ole-fashioned lawsuit! Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Clonie Gowen, Ray Bitar, Michael Craig … so many others — just dropping a few names who might take note and have a concerned interest in this matter — are you listening?
