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Obviously it takes a little time for everyones comfort level to return when promoting Chipleader brands (Absolute and Ultimate Bet). From our perspective, top level as affiliates, Chipleader has always been fair and timely on payments, new creatives, new promotions and competitive deposit bonuses. Not to mention they stayed in the US market and gave us another great converting option for our US traffic. There were definitely some questionable (alright, really bad) decisions to allow access to employees but it seemed single cased. In other words, if everyone who worked at AP had been given this software backdoor access then there would have been mass cheating and they would have been exposed years ago. This didn’t happen; and the single case was dealt with quickly once made aware of.
Please feel free to read through the entire finding and ruling here: http://www.kahnawake.com/gamingcommission/KGC-AP-0111.pdf
With the sanctions being imposed, I cant think of a more safe place to play poker online right now than AP. As affiliates they provide us with the tools we need to be successful. As a player you have a decision to make (as with any room you deposit at). Any room being operated under a microscope is great for us. You’ll see less fraud and collusion here than most other rooms from here out on AP/UB.
I’m finding that my positioning is softening a little – and most of you know I’m not exactly the most forgiving of chaps.
My initial thought was that Absolute should disappear forever and shut up shop. The whole event has been appalling and certain individuals should end up in jail, in my opinion.
Take some time to listen to twoplustwo’s recent interview with Paul Leggett, Chief Operating Officer of Tokwiro Enterprises (owner of both Absolute Poker and UltimateBet).
http://pokercast.twoplustwo.com/pokercast.php?pokercast=26
The podcast is pretty long but you can skip to the main discuss at approx. 22 minutes and the interview itself kicks in at about 45 minutes.
See what you think.
Will *I* be promoting Absolute? No. It’s a personal decision and one we all have to make for our own sites and visitors. But at this stage I’m not going to criticise those who do – and that’s a different position to the one I would have had prior to listening to the interview.
I have the ironic luxury of not being much of a poker affiliate so any decision I make isn’t going to make much difference. I do feel for those of you who have loads of poker traffic and have a difficult decision to make with this.
Greg;165806 wrote:With the sanctions being imposed, I cant think of a more safe place to play poker online right now than AP. As affiliates they provide us with the tools we need to be successful. As a player you have a decision to make (as with any room you deposit at). Any room being operated under a microscope is great for us. You’ll see less fraud and collusion here than most other rooms from here out on AP/UB.These are the same types of comments people made after the AP scandal was investigated and resolved. (before UB was accused of the same crime)
I guess it’s a good thing there aren’t any other major brands in the AP/UB stable… otherwise we’d likely be hearing the same assurances again next year. :inlove:
Doesn’t it scare the hell out of you that not one person in charge of the AP investigation thought to check into the possibility that UB could be compromised in the same manner. They were owned and managed by the same cheats after all.
And the so called investigation… they were basically investigating themselves and only after allowing the cheating to go unchecked for well over a year. The UB cheating would still be going on if the “players” hadn’t forced them to admit there was a problem with the NIONIO account.
You’re right Professor, I don’t agree with your decision. As far as I’m concerned AP/UB are rotten to the core. They’ve shown no interest in protecting the players. Instead, they continued to deny any wrong doing and whitewash the results of the investigations.
Full disclosure? Yep, that would help. Not likely gonna happen though…
i do find the whole situation extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely dodgy and do not believe UB’s public statements. considering how much money those guys make, they could’ve hired somebody to handle this whole PR issue much better.
in any case, i’ve yanked the sites back when AP scandal broke out. good riddance imho. not that they are bad sites, they were good poker rooms, but the same accusations to follow UB is just bad. it could have been easily forseen but someone was in on the deal…
this is black and white to me. If they hadn’t of tried to cover things up it would be different.
I’ll tell you what you get when you forgive a mate for cheating on you after they did everything possible to convince you they were innocent. You get cheated on again after a period of time. And you deserve it because you proved with your actions that the results of getting caught were nothing you couldn’t simply talk your way through.
No I don’t forgive the poker rooms. I could easily if they’d rushed forward and made an honest effort to investigate. Anybody who forgives them for that reason should probably start looking up when they cross the street instead of just trusting everybody will stop when the walk sign lights up.
Does it not concern that their “investigations” were just another face of Sybil? And they were called on that and FINALLY they make a somewhat better effort and all is forgiven?
I’m sorry but their very actions after the fact prove to me they are not sincere.
…….
that said I my heart goes out to those trapped holding their future income in one hand and reputation in the other. All the more reason to have ill feelings towards these poker rooms however.
It is one thing if they stopped the cheating when it first came to light but you know they put your income on the line by choosing to allow this to continue only you never saw any of the profit from taking every bit as much risk because it could quite as easily have went the other way and nobody had anything to do with them again.
Frankly I am amazed at how many are still willing to play there. When was the last time you heard of such a stink get outed that the total of the damage done was held to just what was reported at the time?
Who knows what is going on? I DO know a smart person wouldn’t have been so incredibly obvious (ego played a part there at the end, wouldn’t you say? and its what brought them down) so you gotta be thinking that if I wouldn’t have played so dumb … there’s a lot more out there who’d be doing what you’re thinking.
While its very likely that the cheating is ended (for now) … would I go there and play high stakes? Not unless Jesus was there handing out free passes to the next life in the first class section.
one last thing to consider. Right now you’re in to them … whatever you are in. Do you want to be sitting in that same chair this time 2 or 3 years from now, only with that many times more invested in a company that has proven to cover up anything that makes them look bad and is willing to risk it all to accomplish that feat?
Blackstone1;166171 wrote:What about Fulltilt and PokerStars?
Do they have a good record and pay their affiliates on time?Yes and yes…
PokerStars is way ahead of the pack in most aspects but FT converts better for me.
Doyle’s and Carbon are also excellent US friendly sites (good alternatives to AP/UB).@The Pokerkeep 166409 wrote:
Yes and yes…
PokerStars is way ahead of the pack in most aspects but FT converts better for me.Does PokerStars still only accept CPA deals? If I remember right when I signed up with them back then finally I didn’t promote them because they didn’t want to offer rev share, and I only do rev share models.
I don’t see how people can make any money on rev share for poker. For sportsbook/casino yes, but for the small percentage on the rake you’d have to have alot of active players.
sipka;166477 wrote:Does PokerStars still only accept CPA deals? If I remember right when I signed up with them back then finally I didn’t promote them because they didn’t want to offer rev share, and I only do rev share models.At this time Stars is strictly CPA but from what I’ve heard, that may change very soon.
Blackstone1;166519 wrote:I don’t see how people can make any money on rev share for poker. For sportsbook/casino yes, but for the small percentage on the rake you’d have to have alot of active players.Funny, I think that about Casino revenues… have a big winner and lose your whole month! At least with poker you earn off the rake of every player whether they play nickle and dime or high stakes. No negatives to worry about and you can actually cheer when one of your players wins big…
Uh guys, this thread has nothing to do with Stars/Full Tilt/CPA Rev share, please don’t derail. Start another thread of you wish to discuss these things.
Guys at this point we feel like Absolute Poker is taking the necessary steps to ensure that something like this does not occur again.
The same fraudulent PLAYERS (Ex employees and prior owner) that took advantage of a security loophole at Ultimate Bet were responsible for the incidents which took place here. Those security breachs have been fixed at both properties and the company is actively pursuing legal action against those involved.
All effected players are being made whole and management does take the problems very seriously.
It’s a sad commentary on human nature that for as long as there has been gambling there have been players who cheat. Casinos and Poker Rooms both online and offline spend billions of dollars a year on security to minimize the cheating, but there is no 100% fool proof method to stop it.
Have there been cheats at highly regarded poker rooms like Binions, Belagio, Mirage,Venetian, MGM Grand or Caesers Palace? Absolutely. Has there been colusion between dealers or even pit bosses and cheating players? Absolutely. Does the general public demand that every Casino or Poker Room which has had cheaters attack their business be closed? No.
Is it fair or reasonable to try to close down an online operator for the same problems, even if they do everything they can to repair the damages done? I dont think so. If you do then by all means drop promotion of that casino or poker room, but dont expect everyone else who plays there or promotes them to follow suit.
The other issue we face at CAP/PAP is we are working with Chipleader, the affiliate program, and they had no hand in any of this at all. Why penalize them when they have always been very supportive of our community?
If the issue was Chipleader was shaving stats or stealing players from affiliate accounts and there was ubstantive evidence to support a claim then that would be grounds for immediate decertification. That isn’t what happened.
Pokerkeep I know you are probably not going to agree with this and not everyone is going to be happy with our decision, but I hope you understand it.
Anyone who is NOT comfortable promoting these brands should drop them and move to Poker Rooms you prefer to work with. It’s your business and you have to do what you think is best for your players and we support that.
For the players and affiliates that do continue to work with Chipleader or play at these poker rooms we support your decision.
Personally I do not feel like my players are in dire straits if they play at either Absolute Poker or Ultimate Bet. I also appreciate the fact that they stayed with US players and affiliates throughout the UIGEA storm and didnt take the easy route and head for shore like many others did. I value that loyalty and it weighs heavily in my decision on which Poker Rooms I agressively promote and which ones I dont.
Thats where we are at.
WOW, that’s all I can say right now.
It’s a sad commentary on human nature that for as long as there has been gambling there have been players who cheat. Casinos and Poker Rooms both online and offline spend billions of dollars a year on security to minimize the cheating, but there is no 100% fool proof method to stop it.
Have there been cheats at highly regarded poker rooms like Binions, Belagio, Mirage,Venetian, MGM Grand or Caesers Palace? Absolutely.
WTF? It was the owners cheating players, not the players cheating the owners. The owners had been cheating players for a looooong time before the PLAYERS discovered it.
Is it fair or reasonable to try to close down an online operator for the same problems, even if they do everything they can to repair the damages done? I dont think so. If you do then by all means drop promotion of that casino or poker room, but dont expect everyone else who plays there or promotes them to follow suit
Given how Absolute/UB handled this whole mess (the continuous denials, lies, coverups etc etc) I find it very hard to believe that this operation was ever/will ever be reputable. I find it even harder to believe that they have done ‘everything possible’ to repair the damages done.
I have no problem with the last sentence in bold, but I wonder how many of those affiliates that continue to promote these rogues actually inform their players of previous cheating, and Absolutes/UBs relentless lies and coverups?
Reactions to the AP/UB cheating issue are disappointing at best, for myself, and my reason is that players are effectively saying its okay if we get cheated, then lied to … to the point of insulting our intelligence .. as long as you pay us back IF we catch you. But don’t worry, other than that we’ll still be coming around to support your business.
I really gave poker players more credit than that, and some of course are taking stance but its amazing how many are so willing to forgive. It almost is enough to make me question my whole approach to this industry because I’ve tried very hard to always do the right thing but this sends me the message that nobody freakin’ cares.
I mean really. what would it take if not these incidents, to send people packing? oh, and I don’t buy for a second that all these players are in the positive and that’s why they are choosing to stay and play.
But assume for a minute that WAS true. Then it stands to reason that if these players are able to show a positive while playing in a climate that was tainted with cheating then they ought to be able to do just as well or better by playing somewhere else.
So what’s the attraction? Pretty graphics were never enough to sway me into playing somewhere I wasn’t comfortable. And how could anyone be comfortable playing at a place where everytime you got beat by someone who called when they should have folded … left you wondering if you got beat by an idiot or by a super user?
