Guys I spent about an hour with Laurent discussing the recent thread which wrongly accused Casino Partners of misconduct. In the thread they were called out for generating a number of casino portals that had ranked highly at Yahoo for the term "online casinos".

Before Laurent had the chance to respond a number of posts were made and it appeared that some affiliates were convinced Casino Partners was guilty before hearing both sides of the story.

Understandably this upset Laurent terribley who felt he had worked long and hard to establish a good relationship with his affiliates.

He has been a supporter of us here at CAP and he has also been a partner with GPWA. He attends all the major affiliate conferences and is very proactive when it comes to servicing his partners.

I agreed with him that it would be very unfair for a misunderstaning to tarnish Casino Partners good reputation and agreed to investigate the matter further and report back what was found. Here's what appears to have happened:

1. "Stupid" is the owner of the portal www.onlinecasinohelper.com . He was ranked #1 for the term "Online Casinos" at Yahoo until a recent update. After the update he had moved down to position #5 and was understandably upset.

2. If you view the sites which displaced Stupid you WILL find they are owned by the same person and are optimized portals promoting the Casino Partners casinos. You will also find the links at each site are unique to that site and on the surface might appear to be trackers used by the casinos themselves rather then affiliate IDs.

3. I think when many of us looked at these links it threw up "Red Flags" as we are used to using a single affiliate link across our portals and in our marketing efforts. Most people do NOT set up a different Affiliate ID for each portal or campaign, so it was suspicious looking to us that each portal had its own links to the same casinos.

4. "Stupid" was told by competing affiliate manager(s) that the portals belonged to Casino Partners and he hit the roof. He was already mad that he lost those spots and now he was being told it was the actual casino group that did this to him. That prompted him to come here and start the thread.

5. Since webmasters are always suspicious of "Casino Tricks" and conspiracy theories many of us were very receptive to the idea that this was a plot by Casino Partners to "Go Around" the affiliates and scoop up search traffic. The fact that there ARE casino groups out there who ARE building portals made the accusations against Casino Partners easier to believe.

In working with Laurent and checking out the whole story I am as sure as humanly possible that this WAS all a big misunderstanding and that his group was NOT RESPONSIBLE for all the ensuing debate.

Those portals are owned by an affiliate of Casino Partners. At CAP we owe Laurent an apology for besmirching his business unfairly by allowing un substantiated claims to be aired that could have potentially damaged his business. This was done without PROOF and as an administrator I should have stepped in quicker to minimize damages to a valued partner. For this I apologize to Laurent.

Guys I believe this was all a misunderstanding and not a malicious attack on Casino Partners. I believe if you objectively look at their track record with affiliates and within the affiliate community you will find they are a top notch partner.

Thank You for your understanding in this matter.