Do you dare read?

[Chips]

Pat, don't take the confidentiality issues in the wrong light. Michael is bound by the business to hold some things that may or may not have been discussed in private. Not all things can be put out for all to see. Being a business person for many many years, there were many times I was privy to information that I was bound to protect and not release to the general public.

A ton of this infighting has occurred in our prime time but you must realize that Alex is across the pond and hopefully tucked neatly in bed through most of the posts here. Know him as I hope I do, he is an upright guy and will provide whatever details he can.

By simply attacking each other and Michael is counter productive and gets us no where except for tearing us asunder. Let's see what happens over the coming days. The world and our lives will surely survive a few hours or days.

I have always trusted in the steerage of the GPWA and I truly hope that that trust continues going forward. I know that if whatever Micheal was forced to squelch was for the good of us all. Let's not try to read anything into it or play the "transparency card" You know as well as anyone that there will never be 100% transparency in this industry let alone any business on the planet. There is always something that is "Not for public eyes" In over 30 years of business I could fill a book with what I could not say or disclose, even to my own employees or family.

I think we all need to step away from the keyboard and take a deep cleansing breath. Then turn on the Golden Girls or Seinfeld rerun. Let's see what plays out in the days to come and put our trust in the leadership that we have trusted for xx months/years/decades.


@pgaming: I am trying to quit too, it ain't working though.

[TheCPA]

I'm also quite confident that information would have been provided voluntarily in the very near future.

To preempt voluntary disclosure with a breach of confidentiality is just plain wrong. It is something I cannot agree is appropriate. And I would go further and say that anyone who feels otherwise does not have their moral compass pointing in the right direction in my opinion.

OK, let me just say this, and I'll shut up for a while. Maybe.

As the "Owner/EDITOR/Publisher " of Casino City, RGT, or whatever, you do or should have a confidentialty obligation. I FULLY UNDERSTAND THAT!!!!!!

Then again, ALSO as the "Owner/Leader" of the GPWA, A Webmaster Forum, you also have a moral and ethical obligation to disseminate any and all valuable information to the community of affiliates that make up the GPWA.

Yes, I understand this is tightrope sometime, and don't even try to tell me money isn't a HUGE factor! Just being honest with it all.

IMO, you need to do a better job of distinquishing the two things. If you can't PUBLISH it due to CONFINENTIALTY agreements, then it has no value anyway.
Do it like the national media does. Publish the info without referencing the source!!! No big deal that way.

A story that cannot be published in it's totality is borderline manipulative.

Voluntary disclosure by a third party to you should generally mean they don't want to be identified as the source.

That's fine. Your job as a news source is to make sure the "SOURCE" is credible, to protect the source's identity, and to let the GPWA Members know the truth on all issues.
That is what we all expect you to do as GPWA Members,.....and I'm sure what the readers of Casino City and RGT expect.

If you can't balance those things, then the current GPWA effort under your control is in vain. JMO.

Sorry to sound so critical, but this all just common sense to me.
You are running two different kinds of organizations. The expectations from you are not the same but the solution is actually common.

Think about it for a bit, and you might actually agree and make some adjustments that would benefit all of us.

[TheCPA]

PS: Just for clarity.

Information that is obtained in such a mannor that it cannot be disclosed and disseminated to the people it mainly affects is worthless to the masses, and valuable only to a few.

Also, it should NEVER be your choice to disclose what you feel is appropriate, needed or necessary.
Give all the info, and we will make our OWN choices based on your good reporting of the information.

[GamTrak]

Come on guys. We don't know how long Michael has had information and like Chips said, it's 3am in London so Alex more than likely has been sleep and will wake up to this nightmare with a response. Hopefully.

Let's not get side tracked from the OP question. WTH is CAP doing at the conferences when they are a known rouge? Either we have a 'rouge' list that the industry go by or we don't. We need to be consistant and not pick and choose where to be 'judemental' and apply the rouge blanket.

Let's wait and see what happens before we start fragmenting more than we are now.

[Betpartners]

OK, let me just say this, and I'll shut up for a while. Maybe.

As the "Owner/EDITOR/Publisher " of Casino City, RGT, or whatever, you do or should have a confidentialty obligation. I FULLY UNDERSTAND THAT!!!!!!

Then again, ALSO as the "Owner/Leader" of the GPWA, A Webmaster Forum, you also have a moral and ethical obligation to disseminate any and all valuable information to the community of affiliates that make up the GPWA.

Yes, I understand this is tightrope sometime, and don't even try to tell me money isn't a HUGE factor! Just being honest with it all.

IMO, you need to do a better job of distinquishing the two things. If you can't PUBLISH it due to CONFINENTIALTY agreements, then it has no value anyway.
Do it like the national media does. Publish the info without referencing the source!!! No big deal that way.

A story that cannot be published in it's totality is borderline manipulative.

Voluntary disclosure by a third party to you should generally mean they don't want to be identified as the source.

That's fine. Your job as a news source is to make sure the "SOURCE" is credible, to protect the source's identity, and to let the GPWA Members know the truth on all issues.
That is what we all expect you to do as GPWA Members,.....and I'm sure what the readers of Casino City and RGT expect.

If you can't balance those things, then the current GPWA effort under your control is in vain. JMO.

Sorry to sound so critical, but this all just common sense to me.
You are running two different kinds of organizations. The expectations from you are not the same but the solution is actually common.

Think about it for a bit, and you might actually agree and make some adjustments that would benefit all of us.

What your saying in essence is that there is a conflict of interest between the organisations that Michael runs.

This may well be true or not, no opinion really on that, in fact never really thought about it.

But regardless of conflicts of interest or business you may run or organisation your apart off, political party, swingers group it makes no difference, a confidentiality agreement is that and must remain so.

Now if your saying Michael is wrong for putting himself in a sitaution whereby he must honour a confidential agreement to the detriment of affiliates that his organisation represents then thats a different issue.

Short of criminal activity or possible harm to someone in any form i do not see the justification for breaking a confidence.

[giggles7p]

Ok Micheal, Chips, and everyone else who thinks i am wrong and has coddled me. I apologize and will sit back and read and learn. I admit i do not know to much about whats going on, but when i see somethings that my stomach tells me is not right i have to speak up and ask. If i upset anyone...I am sorry. If i said something wrong...I am sorry.

Forgive me for saying anything and if i am wrong...once again...I am sorry.

Pat

[Betpartners]

Ok Micheal, Chips, and everyone else who thinks i am wrong and has coddled me. I apologize and will sit back and read and learn. I admit i do not know to much about whats going on, but when i see somethings that my stomach tells me is not right i have to speak up and ask. If i upset anyone...I am sorry. If i said something wrong...I am sorry.

Forgive me for saying anything and if i am wrong...once again...I am sorry.

Pat

Absolutely nothing to apologise for, you have a point of view and expressed it as such.

Your entitled to your view as much as any of us.

Be a bit boring if we agreed on everything

[giggles7p]

Thank you....you are a sweet, dear man.

I speak with my heart and my gut...sometimes it gets me into trouble and sometimes it gets people mad at me.....i need to tame it and get it under control because i come off wrong.....I just dont want anyone deciding what i should know and when i should know it.

Thanks for your understanding and sweetness.

Pat

[TheCPA]

Now if your saying Michael is wrong for putting himself in a sitaution whereby he must honour a confidential agreement to the detriment of affiliates that his organisation represents then thats a different issue.

I've been saying this since John sold the GPWA to Casino City. In fact, I voiced this concern before the site was sold. In fact, we had 80k put together to buy the site from John, but got outbid! LMAO

Nothing new here really, and I have been honest with Micheal on several occasions over the past couple of years when situations like this have come up,.... so Micheal knows my heart and conviction on GPWA issues like this.
I don't sugar coat anything for him, and I think he respects that,...although it probably pisses him off from time to time! LMAO
I'm not talking out of school when it comes to this kind of stuff with Micheal.
He knows how I feel. I think anyway!LOL

I helped get the GPWA off the ground many years ago Bet Partner, and as I mentioned earlier, I realize the GPWA that was truly about Webmasters is a thing of the past due to LOU.

This place really needed a new owner, and it needed some cash input, but I will always be disappointed it went so commercial.

Eitherway, and as I said earlier, I do feel Micheal has some good values that I CAN support. I choose to focus on those at this point because the GPWA that was truly about affiliates is long gone. JMO.

In other words, not all bad,.....just not what I feel is better way for affs,... and I don't have the financial resources to do any better at this time.

Hopefully the GPWA will find those old values it was founded on and then,.. and only then will the affiliate community have a chance at becoming truly united again. JMO.

[PokerNations]

I would still love to know what financial interest CAP has in various industry events, because I wouldn't want to support anything that would put a dime in the pockets of those slimeballs, plain and simple.

I expect whatever answer we receive will be worded carefully, but will pretty much reveal that CAP does have a financial interest, regardless of the name change on the conferences.

Sort of how Blackwater tried to rename themselves Xe to get away from the bad press

[PokerNations]

Also, Alex posted at PAL yesterday:

http://www.pokeraffiliatelistings.co...oody-ages.html

[casinobonusguy]

If Alex came in and said CAP still owns and runs these conferences I don`t think it will change much at all.What programs are going to pull out`,they will still go .Affiliates will still go too ,that`s the reality .

[Webzcas]

For what it is worth. IMO Michael took the hard but necessary action in this thread.

By me siding with Michael's action is in no way a condemnation of JTodd who has done sterling work for the industry.

If I had told Michael something in confidence I would be dismayed if that confidence was then betrayed.

[alexpratt]

Wow! Ok there are three things I will address here

1)Slightly off topic - This thread illustrates exactly what went wrong in the iGaming affiliate market last year and seems to be moving over to 2010 - Internal bickering, insulting, off topic arguments, assumptions etc only hurt affiliates as a whole. You need to realise that affiliates are dam important now and a huge part of the industry and insulting each other will only hurt you guys and represent you as individuals that are not serious business people.

Read into this as you like but I love the affiliate market, I love the forums, the people, the parties, the conferences, the opportunities, and the community and you will lose a lot of that if you constantly fight between eachother and lose focus on the real issues.

2) Our relationship with CAP - You can see full clarification here http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.c...c-bac-etc.html This hasn't been hidden and is what I have told many people at conferences, in chats, in email, etc. We have full control over the events, their costings, logistics, the database, the marketing partners, sales, marketing, websites, registration, in fact all areas of the event 100% - There is a financial deal with CAP but like all deals they are bound by confidentiality and as a PLC I have to respect that even more.
If you have never come to an event, come to one and meet myself, Marit, Kiera, Lizzie and Shona (new yesterday), i.e. the actual people behind this event and you will see we are good people that are doing our best to deliver an event that is has ROI value to affiliates and operators and importantly one you can enjoy. We love doing our jobs and have a genuine passion for these events and this industry and hope to continue to do this better each and every time.

3) Marketing Partnerships
This is reaction to Michael's post re logos etc on the site as I think I need to explain - (See quote below) Our marketing partnership with CAP is like any other marketing partnership you create when you have an event, i.e. you contra their reach to an audience with components you have, and like any deal what you get and give is different for each company.

We work with a large number of partners and now I have a marketing person I am hoping to increase this even more - We work(ed) with eGaming Review, PAL, CAL, AGD, CAP, GPWA, Online Casino Reports, Affiliates4U, Gaming Online Mag, Bluff, BizNiz Men, A4U expo, Affilicon, Intergamingi, CalvinAyre.com etc. CAP gives us a lot of exposure to their audience with a major presence in their emails, and website which does get us a lot of new traffic from their SEO ranking on key terms such as Gambling Affiliate Programs and Casino Affiliate programs which is what we want so they get a bigger exposure on the site such as the homepage logo (incidently OCR also have this as part of their marketing partnership with us.)
CalvinAyre.com is giving us some great exposure on their site via video, banners, news and interviews so they are getting increased exposure at the awards (unique) and in our mags.
GPWA give us exposure via a private forum, in their emails and in their mag so they get a free stand (worth £4,500), profile in the delegate guide, logos on the website, and distribution of the mag in the media area.

All these partnerships are specific to the deal that was made and its as simple as that - Some deals get next to nothing and some get a lot more that is how it works across all events and is not unique, for example at EIG iGaming Business and bag inserts and a stand and eGaming Review didn't - This was because we did more for EIG and have a bigger audience and reach, its really as simple as that.

With regards to the GPWA logo not being listed as an exhibitor that is a mistake on my part and simply human error which I will correct after I have posted this. It isn't the first logo that has failed to go up and probably won't be the last partiuclary when managing multiple sites, events and over 75 exhibitors/partners/sponsors. Just an honest mistake so all I can do is apologise.

What I decided I can do is to state in somewhat more detail information available on the www.londonaffiliateconference.com website and additional information that I do not view as confidential.

1. CAP is listed on the home page of the website and I have been told that the business relationship between CAP and iGB makes that appropriate whereas the business relationship between GPWA and iGB does not make that appropriate.

2. CAP is listed as an exhibitor at the conference.

3. Although the GPWA is not listed as an exhibitor we will in fact have a stand at the show.

4. Listed marketing partners include CAP, CAPTV and the GPWA among others.

This thread has gotten out of hand because folks want more information about the relationship between iGB and CAP. While I do know more than I have stated here, we all know that Alex is generally a good guy and tries to answer questions honestly in this forum.

Let's give him a chance to do that. He has only been back from his honeymoon for one business day.

Michael

[MichaelCorfman]

Below I quote the post from the CAP website referenced above by Alex. Please note that this post was made less than two hours ago by Warren.

CAP's involvement in the largest gaming affiliate conferences (LAC, AAC, BAC, etc.)

A few people within our industry are curious as to our (CAP's) relationship to the land-based iGaming conferences known as AAC (Amsterdam Affiliate Conference), BAC (Budapest Affiliate Conference), LAC (London Affiliate Conference), and a few other smaller or yet to be published conferences. I would like to officially clarify this matter so there is full transparency, which I feel is important.

Back in late 2006, around the time UIGEA was passed, Alex Pratt (Publisher of iGaming Business) and I conceptualized a series of iGaming affiliate conferences which would be completely free for affiliates who were members of both CAP *and* the GPWA - these conferences would become the "official" CAP conferences and would take over our already established event series, CAP Spring Break, which had been in existence since 2002. It is important to mention, iGB and CAP already had an existing relationship as iGB was (although a name change has since been instituted to “iGB Affiliate Magazine”) responsible for the publication, editorial, and advertising sales of the official magazine of CAP - "CAP magazine".

A deal was struck whereby iGaming Business (hereafter referred as "iGB") would handle all of the sales, logistics, and planning of these conferences, and CAP would handle all of the marketing to affiliates and operators. All invoicing was to be handled by iGB and there would be a split of profits on these conferences (the exact split is not relevant, nor will it be discussed from either side as our contract treats this as strictly confidential). The first event launched in January 2007 in London and the rest is history - these events are now clearly the largest and most established conferences within the iGaming affiliate sector, world-wide and CAP has continued to market & promote these events the same way as we did since the first CAP Euro London conference.

In early 2009, due to our own internal challenges & restructuring, a decision was made to distance the events and magazines from CAP. Until this point, CAP had full authority to veto any sponsorship, offer discounts/combined sponsorships, and control other matters. We gave up this control and provided 100% latitude to iGB in an effort to focus our time, energy, and resources on resolving the internal disputes at the time. A decision was also made to re-brand the conferences, which remains in effect today.

From a financial perspective CAP is still a beneficiary -- we co-founded the conferences, attracted the affiliates/operators, and rightfully deserved to continue to benefit financially from these events.

If anyone has questions on the conferences, magazines, or CAP in general, both Alex and I are readily available to answer them here on CAP.

Sincerely,

Warren

[Shaun O'neill]

Thanks for the post Alex and i guess the post from Warren just about covers the topic of this thread so will thing calm down!!!!

Shaun

[GamTrak]

Thanks for the post Alex and i guess the post from Warren just about covers the topic of this thread so will thing calm down!!!!

Shaun

Yep, the information posted today has made me decide to NOT attend anymore events that CAP has a vested income interest in.

I was under the impression that 'known rouges' would NOT be allowed to attend the conference, but IMO that is not the case (CAP owners are rouge) so I'm saving my money to blow on something else!

Edit: And another thing how are affiliates being exposed to CAP any different than players exposed to rouge sites? There IS NONE. You can't have it both ways. Either you are a anti-rouge or your are not. You can't pick and choose between rouges!

Since I've been raked over the coals for having gambling wages on my site I feel justified in making my point!

[Shaun O'neill]

Hei Robin

I think it is pretty sad that we will no tget to see you in London, i understand why you feel that way but still i think it is sad that we will not get to meet face to face.

Shaun

Yep, the information posted today has made me decide to NOT attend anymore events that CAP has a vested income interest in.

I was under the impression that 'known rouges' would NOT be allowed to attend the conference, but IMO that is not the case (CAP owners are rouge) so I'm saving my money to blow on something else!

Edit: And another thing how are affiliates being exposed to CAP any different than players exposed to rouge sites? There IS NONE. You can't have it both ways. Either you are a anti-rouge or your are not. You can't pick and choose between rouges!

Since I've been raked over the coals for having gambling wages on my site I feel justified in making my point!

[PokerNations]

As long as CAP receives any form of interest from these events I will also not attend. Thank you for the clarification Alex, and hopefully in the future your side will figure out a way to buy out CAP and no longer have any association with that organization.

[casinobonusguy]

I am not surprised by any of these things coming out today .I think you have to be very Naive not to assume these were still tied to CAP.Do programs pay more,less or the same now since the Rebranding? The fact Gamtrak won't go is huge IMO .I know most affiliate managers are muzzled by the owners not to get in the middle of stuff like this discussion but would be nice to see somebody with balls to provide an opinion from the other side of the fence/Does it matter to you at all?