Dancing Around the Truth About CardSpike

**MichaelCorfman** · 23 January 2009, 8:21 pm

Sometimes the truth is in the shadows. Statements can be twisted and intent can be cast into question. But when an issue is illuminated from many directions, and the dance between actions and reactions is examined, a clear view can emerge from the shadows.

For months CardSpike had payment issues, and for months the management of Affiliate Media, who operate the CAP and PAP websites, appeared to ignore and defend CardSpike in a fashion that many affiliates felt was uncharacteristic of the way other affiliate programs such as Grand Prive were treated. In a few forums, such as PokerAffiliateListings.com, questions were raised about the seemingly cozy nature of the business relationship between Affiliate Media and CardSpike.

Then, on January 1, 2009, Gambling 911 dropped a new year’s bombshell. They announced that “A number of its (CardSpike’s) affiliates and some industry observers have told Gambling911.com the new online poker room (CardSpike) is owned by some individuals behind Casino Affiliate Programs, also known as CAP….” (1)

The Casino City Times news staff was investigating the CardSpike situation at the time of the Gambling 911 announcement, although they were not yet ready to run a story on the topic. However, since a news story about the involvement of CAP’s principles with CardSpike had been published, we decided it was appropriate to comment on the situation based on the information we had available at the time. So I made a post in response to the Gambling911 story that stated “I was actually told many months ago that the principals at CAP were the beneficial owners of CardSpike.” (2)

Gambling 911 then followed up with another story about CardSpike on January 6th based on my post with a headline that read “Corfman Confirms CAP Ownership in CardSpike.” (3) I want to apologize for any confusion that resulted from the Gambling 911 headline. I did not expect my statement to be sensationalized as a personal confirmation of the ownership of CardSpike by CAP - I was just trying to say that a source who had confided in me had indicated that there was a beneficial ownership relationship. The statement I did make was based on solid journalistic standards since I viewed my source as being highly credible, I had corroborating information from others, and I had documentation, which I had promised not to reveal as a condition of its receipt, that supported the statements made to me.

Also on Tuesday, January 6th an APCW Perspectives video was released on YouTube that outlined the issues raised in the Gambling 911 article of January 1st, specifically outlining the rogue nature of CardSpike, outlining the possible relationship between CAP and CardSpike, and inviting CAP to make a statement to clear up the situation. (4)

Earlier that week J.Todd had also sent an e-mail request to the management of Affiliate Media (the company that operates the CAP and PAP websites) requesting a statement about the relationship between CAP and CardSpike. Warren Jolly, the CEO of Affiliate Media, responded to the request with an e-mail message that emphatically denied any relationship with CardSpike. (5) Warren’s response stated: “Cardspike is not controlled or managed by CAP, PAP, nor its parent company, Affiliate Media Inc. CAP, PAP, Affiliate Media, and all company personnel have absolutely no ownership interest, no profits interest and no beneficial interest whatsoever in Cardspike. Any statements to the contrary are untrue and unfair.” Since Warren Jolly and Lou Fabiano are company personnel of Affiliate Media, this statement could only be true if both Warren Jolly and Lou Fabiano had absolutely no ownership interest, no profits interest and no beneficial interest whatsoever in CardSpike.

On APCW Perspectives Friday, January 9th, the existence of the Florida corporation Effective Media Group was exposed. Warren Jolly and Lou Fabiano were shown to be officers of both Effective Media Group and Affiliate Media in the video, making them related companies. So we asked Affiliate Media to issue a statement regarding any relationship between Effective Media Group and CardSpike. (6)

Warren Jolly responded with a post on the CAP website that was subsequently reposted on the GPWA website. (7) The post included the following statement: “Effective Media Group, its officers, staff and investors have no direct or indirect ownership in CardSpike.com. EMG operated as performance based consultant ONLY for an offshore investor.” Also, in a video released by CAP on Friday, January 9th Lou Fabiano acknowledged that Effective Media Group provided consulting services to CardSpike. ( 8 ) But no details were offered regarding the nature of the consulting services provided.

We covered the newly revealed relationship between the principles of Affiliate Media and CardSpike in the APCW Perspectives Friday video released on January 16th. (9) In our video we documented that the services Effective Media Group provided to CardSpike extended beyond mere consulting services and included running the rogue CardSpike affiliate program. And we reported that the CardSpike affiliate manager was an employee of the Effective Media Group. This information was subsequently confirmed by the management of Affiliate Media in a thread on the CAP website (10).

Next, in a post I made on the GPWA website on January 19th, I established that the Effective Media Group also ran the affiliate program for Absolute Slots. (11) In the previous statement Affiliate Media had made covering their various business arrangements there was no mention of Absolute Slots. The Absolute Slots connection was also covered in the APCW Perspectives Tuesday video released on January 20th. (12) Again, the relationship was subsequently acknowledged, but only after it was first exposed by us.

The material presented above illustrates some of the interplay that has taken place between Affiliate Media and those trying to get to the bottom of the situation around CardSpike. It shows a clear pattern of Affiliate Media acknowledging only what they understand can already be proven by others. Why would they adopt this approach rather than being more open and transparent? I believe the simple answer to that question is money. More money for Affiliate Media at the expense of both the affiliates and the affiliate programs they purport to serve.

Think about it. If you are an affiliate and believe the information provided on the CAP website is not biased by conflicting business relationships, then the positions taken by CAP management relating to one program versus another would appropriately influence which affiliate programs you decide to work with. But if there are hidden agendas that effect not only what Affiliate Media management says, but also extend to influencing what others have to say through forum censorship, a fundamental trust is broken.

And if you are an affiliate program, the situation is far worse. Affiliate programs pay unbelievable amounts of money to be certified on CAP - $10,000 per quarter is typical. For that reason many affiliates have already questioned the meaning and value of CAP certification. However, when it is clearly demonstrated that conflicts of interest result in some programs remaining inappropriately certified the value received by affiliate programs in exchange for the certification fees is further diminished. And that leaves aside another more important issue for affiliate programs. How many of them understood that when paying heavy fees for CAP certification they were also providing funding to an organization that had a hidden vested interest in the success of competitive gambling sites?

Now, with that background information, let’s go back and examine the CardSpike ownership question which has been so adamantly denied by the management of Affiliate Media. Suppose you were based in the United States and wished to own and operate an online gaming site. How would you go about doing so?

You would probably begin by researching licensing arrangements and other operational aspects of running a gambling site and the associated costs. And once you made a decision to move forward you would most likely set up a legal infrastructure that would minimize the risk of your being directly tied to the online gambling operation you planned to establish.

A typical way to accomplish this objective would be to set up a shell corporation overseas using a third-party “investor” to license the gambling software, to hold title to overseas bank accounts, and to be officially responsible for various legally sensitive matters. Then you would enter into a performance based consulting and services contract with that legal shell whereby you received compensation for the portion of the revenue you wished to repatriate to the United States in exchange for handling various operational aspects of the online gaming site such as running the affiliate program.

And if it ended up you bit off a bit more than you could chew with the complex issues around integrating software and managing affiliate relationships, you might end up with payment problems and other difficulties that would cause affiliates and players to consider the operation you established to be rogue.

Is this the true nature of the relationship between Effective Media Group and CardSpike? It is certainly interesting to note that it appears the statements made by the management team of Affiliate Media and Effective Media Group would be fully consistent with such an arrangement. And such an arrangement would certainly explain why Cake Poker made a proposal to Casino Affiliate Programs to grant them a license on the network used by CardSpike. (13) According to the header record in the e-mail message forwarded to me by a confidential source this proposal was copied to Warren Jolly of Affiliate Media sometime before Effective Media Group was incorporated and before CardSpike was launched. Personally, I find this very interesting indeed!

Michael

(1) www.gambling911.com/gambling-news/cardspike-poker-affiliates-want-answers-cap-010109.html

(2) www.gpwa.org/forum/cardspike-cap-gambling911-178366.html#post524113

(3) www.gambling911.com/gambling-news/corfman-confirms-cap-ownership-cardspike-010609.html

(4) www.gpwa.org/forum/apcw-perspectives-tuesday-01-06-09-a-178394.html

(5) www.gpwa.org/docs/Affiliate-Media-CardSpike-Relationship-Denial.pdf

(6) www.gpwa.org/forum/apcw-perspectives-friday-01-09-09-a-178452.html

(7) www.gpwa.org/forum/cardspike-cap-gambling911-178366/p3.html#post524784

( 8 ) www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/captv/january2009/cap-tv-community-news-january-16th

(9) www.gpwa.org/forum/apcw-perspectives-friday-01-17-09-a-178547.html

(10) www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/bb/cap-tv-professor-s-community-news-1-16-09-cap-london-cardspike-and-more.33421.html

(11) www.gpwa.org/forum/absolute-slots-effective-media-group-178579.html

(12) www.gpwa.org/forum/apcw-perspectives-tuesday-01-20-09-a-178612.html

(13) www.gpwa.org/docs/CAP-Cake-Proposal.pdf

**ck8795** · 23 January 2009, 8:45 pm

Thanks Michael

**Randy72560** · 23 January 2009, 9:33 pm

Thanks for putting this all together Michael, I cannot wait to hear Lou give some idiotic explanation (lie) to make himself look even dumber.. Good times

**mojo** · 23 January 2009, 9:38 pm

Thank you for the summation Michael. Also for the new info. Interesting indeed.

Originally Posted by MichaelCorfman

(13) www.gpwa.org/docs/CAP-Cake-Proposal.pdf

**arkyt** · 23 January 2009, 9:58 pm

... and the plot thickens even further.

Cant wait till next week to see how many programs are still paying their fees and to see how many users are still logging in to use the site.

**hazo** · 23 January 2009, 11:16 pm

Thanks a heap Michael for providing this.

**TheGooner** · 23 January 2009, 11:44 pm

Very informative post Mr Corfman - completely notated but summarized as well so that we all understand exactly what is at issue here - no matter what the original level of understanding.

This look under the covers of CardSpike is much appreciated.

**joeyl** · 24 January 2009, 1:22 am

So one is to surmise that these folk run a Cake poker skin?

What about Absolute Slots.. the same story? Absolute Slots are listed as owned by Silverstone Overseas (bonne chance nv), who run another 9 Rival powered casinos I believe.

Have the GPWA not got any comment from Cake, Rival, Bonne Chance etc?

Cheers.

**TheGamblingGuru** · 24 January 2009, 1:30 am

Originally Posted by MichaelCorfman

A typical way to accomplish this objective would be to set up a shell corporation overseas using a third-party “investor” to license the gambling software, to hold title to overseas bank accounts, and to be officially responsible for various legally sensitive matters. Then you would enter into a performance based consulting and services contract with that legal shell whereby you received compensation for the portion of the revenue you wished to repatriate to the United States in exchange for handling various operational aspects of the online gaming site such as running the affiliate program.

I think you have hit the nail square on the head in that statement my friend. I have a friend who does exactly that very same scenario on a couple of businesses he owns and manages that are licensed offshore while he maintains his cover shell here in the states.

Seems as though more and more of the puzzle is really starting to come together now. Great summary Michael.

**Skinski** · 24 January 2009, 8:03 am

Thanks for the info. Sounds like CAP has been caught in their lies.....and I'm a firm believer that a man who will lie to you, will also steal from you. Three kind of folk I have no use for. Liars, cheats and thieves. And like I stated over at PAL, I think they just may fit the criteria for all three.

**ppw** · 24 January 2009, 8:33 am

WOW, great investigative work!

Thankyou so much for information, and for summing up this complex situation in such a way as a "thicko" like me can understand it.

**MichaelCorfman** · 24 January 2009, 8:38 am

The APCW Friday video that covers the material in my post above is now up and available. Just follow the link to that thread:

www.gpwa.org/forum/apcw-perspectives-friday-01-23-09-cardspike-178691.html.

I recommend watching it. Besides being a whole lot more fun to watch than reading what I wrote above, it does look at things from J.Todd's perspective, and so the emphasis is complementary in many ways, as is some of the material shown in the video too.

Michael

**AngelaGold** · 24 January 2009, 9:33 am

there is nothing on cap's forum about this and I think this is just another proof that even if all webmasters/affiliates work together it's not good enough. We need Association that will be transparent in their work and more important in their reports.

We should publish these kind of news on our own portals and other gambling forums...it would help that we have Association to write news for us

agree?

**Nandakishore** · 24 January 2009, 10:32 am

Thanks Michael for this summary of a very important but confusing investigative process.

In spite of all this revelation, I still want to give CAP leaders a benefit of doubt, provided they come out now with some kind of open reaction to this massive accusations. They need not post in this forum, but Casinomeister's forum would be an appropriate place for presenting their view of the case.

**Caruso** · 24 January 2009, 10:43 am

The new information is the skin proposal.

This takes us right back to the beneficial ownership matter. We have a proposal. But was it accepted? Did Lou and Warren purchase the skin as offered? If so, then this is game, set & match on the ownership question. They'd have bought it, then handed it over to a trustee as the legal owner. Voilà, beneficial ownership.

Even without this confirmation, the wording of the proposal is laughably categoric - it even has an expiry date! This is the proposal of a company fully expecting the propsal to be accepted.

So DID they accept it?

Also, can we get some clarity on the Absolute Slots matter? This is still missing.

**GamTrak** · 24 January 2009, 10:46 am

I want to place this here as it seems relavant.

Yes there does seem to be an endless barage of accusations from GPWA and APCW. One wonders why? Is this an honorable way to compete in the marketplace? When might it be your turn as an affiliate, operator, community or service provider in their sites? I am reletively sure once the tire of pestering us they will move on to the next opportunity for attention.

Now Bryan I sense you may feel we have somehow treaded on you by operating multiple business. The hypocrisy here is CAP is a business oriented community. We service an industry that generates billions of dollars each year. Everyone who reads here are business people (hopefully) and we all compete to one extent or another with each other. I think its safe to assume we all do this to earn money, no?

Some thoughts:

1. Every affiliate is in this business to earn money. Most operate multiple portals or operate in multiple verticals. They all compete with the other affiliates in our business. Affiliates accept this as a standard form of commerce and have no issues with it, and neither do we. Affiliates often operate multiple businesses or work in other verticles or sell services and content or links or whatever and no one views this as sinister or demands that they are totally transparent and detail all their actvities for their competitors to inspect and pass judgement on.

2. Most Casino operators own multiple properties and they compete with each other. Its not comman practice to announce ownership of who owns what. No one bats an eye.

3. Most Software providers operate casinos and affiliate programs of their own and compete directly with their licensees. Obviously they have every advantage in the world in this situation, but it causes no uproar or months of video attacks and Inspector Clouseau style "investigations".

4. Casino City owns and operates GPWA and APCW. They are an agressive and successful portal that directly competes with all their affiliate members. They also generate a significant ammount of revenue through data mining and report sales on player and affiliate behavior, deomgraphics and action to the casinos and online gaming operaters. No word about that or the possible abuses that could occur. If they wanted to mislead or reduce the effectives of their affiliate competitors by using GPWA and APCW to manipulate oppinion they certainly could. Continual attempts to damage a real source of information and value for affiliates might lead to increased earnings for them via Casino City. And that isnt mentioned. At the very least cheap heat and sensationalism could attract attention yet that dooesnt seem to be frowned upon. Feeding false and misleading information and quotes to a national enquirer styled site should be considered a sign of a group that has no integrity whatsoever but that also seems to go unnoticed or at least unspoken.

5. Bryan throughout the years we have ALWAYS been incredibily supportive and complimentary of your efforts. Casinomeister is generaly seen as a premium authority site on players, much like CAP is clearly the largest and most effective community for affiliates.

I assume you operate Casinomeister as a business. Imagine a very minor, but malicious, competitor spending weeks and months attempting to damage your brand and insinuating that by accepting paid ads from the casinos and then serving as a player advocate this presented a clear conflict of interest. They might start off slowly saying you ban hundreds of members and run polls to reinforce that false illusion. Then they ratchet up the heat each and every week. Then demand you be totally transparent in all your business holdings and operations. What right do they have to do so? Does GM demand Toyota release all details on all companies they hold and hammer away at them for months insinuating its their right to know and publish this proprietary information to the world. I think any court or any group of business people would agree that was preposterous, no?

6. Despite the fact that we didnt have to respond to any of this malicious propogranda, we have been transparent and issued statements of clarification and I even commented on video about the subject. So the fallacy that we are hiding something and are nonresponsive is absurd.

7. If you read the vast pages of manure and watch the amateur videos you will see the inconsistencies being cranked out by GPWA/APCW. One minute they have solid proof "EMG owns Cardspike, the next minute CAP owns Cardspike.com. Then we are rogue operators. Then we own Absolute Slots. But Absolute slots is not rogue. Then we see Absolute Slots is a sponsor program at GPWA and somehow this is fine or maybe thats why they dont consider Absolute Slots Rogues. A rumor du jour was we owned Affiliate Speed Pay(ASP) and took thousands of affiliates names from the bank database and transfered them to Cardspike.com. They supposedly had solid proof of this lie then quickly reversed position, Ooops. Now its Cake Poker they want to drag through the mud. The story goes all over the place and the lies and innuendo go on and on. The ONLY thing apparant in all this is that GPWA/APCW wants to cause a major distraction for everyone and damage our businesses and owners at any cost. I would hope sensible people would recognize this for what it is and move on.

Bryan we have met on a number of occasions at the events we put on. Our members voted for you and presented you with a CAP Award. I would hope by now you had an inkling of what we do and how we support and develop the affiliate community and this industry like no one else. Can we get together in London and chat man to man and work out whatever concerns/questions you have? If I had questions for you, out of respect, thats the approach I would follow.

source

**Brandon** · 24 January 2009, 11:09 am

Originally Posted by GamTrak

I want to place this here as it seems relavant.

I don't see why the thread would be locked. Not to mention they never really responded to the problem at hand, and used that post to deflect attention back to GPWA.

I also would like to see an explanation on why they would try to hack into Jeremy's account at PokerAffiliateListings. Lou said it himself in the post

"Is this an honorable way to compete in the marketplace?"

Is it honorable to try and hack a competitors site by attempting to use passwords he used while under employment of your company?

**GamTrak** · 24 January 2009, 11:22 am

Originally Posted by Brandon

I don't see why the thread would be locked. Not to mention they never really responded to the problem at hand, and used that post to deflect attention back to GPWA.

What difference does it make? It's not like a new thread can't be created at other forums.

A locked thread is not a crime and he obviously has his reasons and since most of CAP will be traveling to the convention I can see him not wanting the thread to get out of hand plus the fact that it is HIS forum.

He asked Bryan to see him in London so I hope that it happens.

**mojo** · 24 January 2009, 11:23 am

Ok, just to keep this straight I hope. Lou's response was in reply to CM's questions but I don't see the answers to the direct questions unless I am missing something?

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Casinomeister
...I'm just trying to do you a favor by pointing out that there is a conflict of interest here.

I don't mean to rock the boat here in CAP-land, but I feel that this needs to be explained once and for all.

The recent video by the GPWA contains some damning accusations. One thing is this:

https://www.gpwa.org/docs/CAP-Cake-Proposal.pdf

It's an agreement between CAP and Cake Poker to run a poker skin. Is it Card Spike that is being referred to?

J.Todd, Casino City and the GPWA aren't welcome to post here, but setting those differences aside - there are legitimate claims that so far, have remained unanswered.

After viewing this video, I feel that I (and your membership) have been deceived. I hope you will be willing to discuss this in a open manner. I feel that everyone is owed nothing less.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-bk98fBhXE
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**GamTrak** · 24 January 2009, 11:32 am

Originally Posted by mojo

Ok, just to keep this straight I hope. Lou's response was in reply to CM's questions but I don't see the answers to the direct questions unless I am missing something? /url]

Hi Mojo,

From reading the response I don't think the Professor is going to address CM's questions in a public forum. Atleast that's how I read it.

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