Online Casino News

Casino Affiliate Programs and Cardspike: a contract and a high-profile resignation

In my Cardspike and Casino Affiliate Programs: player non-payment and ownership allegations which may rock the industry article of two weeks ago, I reported the allegation of an ownership connection between poker room Cardspike and Casino Affiliate Programs, online casino affiliate networking site previously subject of my CAP player database sale and database sale follow up articles.

Since then, further information has come to light and the discussions have branched off in many different directions.


Fabiano and Jolly, owners of Casino Affiliate Programs, acknowledged that, while their company Affiliate Media Inc was not connected to Cardspike, another of their operations, Effective Media Group, did have an interest.

To quote Jolly:

EMG operated as performance based consultant ONLY for an offshore investor.

The nature of the consultancy, or any further information about the "offshore investor", was never disclosed. Although this does not in itself represent an ownership / direct profit interest, clearly there is a financial interest of one kind or another, with all the potential conflicting interests that I outlined in my previous article.

Additionally, it was established that the affiliate manager of Cardspike, one Greg Powell...




...also worked for Effective Media:





Since the above Effective Media email is used for a communication from Cardspike, Effective Media would appear to be in charge of the Cardspike affiliate programme. This does not square with Warren Jolly's assertion that "EMG operated as performance based consultant ONLY for an offshore investor".


However, the issue of actual ownership, beyond simple contractual involvement, appears to have acquired quite categoric corroborartion on the basis of the publication, by Michael Corfman of the GPWA, of a Cake Poker Proposal And Key Schedule, which outlines a contract proposal on the part of Cardspike provider Cake Poker to Casino Affiliate Programs, for acquisition of a poker room on their network:





An examination of the language used in this schedule is quite revealing:

Cake Gaming...is pleased to present a proposal whereby Cake provides online poker services as outlined below to Casino Affiliate Programs.

This proposal is valid until (date deleted) and may be extended upon request.

This is clearly not a vague solicitation sent at random to an organisation which just happened to be a big online casino affiliate network. There can be little doubt that it represents the climax of a certain amount of discussion between CAP and Cake Poker, discussions centred on the acquisition, by CAP, of a Cake Poker white label operation.

The quoted passages do not use conditional language such as "...would provide" or "...will provide", but the much more definitive "...Cake provides". This is, at the very least, a proposal expected to morph into a contract after minimal additions.

Most categorically, the proposal has an expiry date, with the option to extend. As such, although it's not referred to as a contract, clearly the only thing missing is the required signatures in order to turn the proposal into a binding agreement of acquisition of rights to a Cake Poker skin on the part of Casino Affiliate Programs.


The proposal was presented on the CAP forum to Fabiano by, somewhat surprisingly, Bryan Bailey from Casinomeister, a high-profile webmaster regarded by many as honourable.

Bailey's questions were not answered, and I cannot provide a link to the discussions as they were deleted. Bailey's CAP membership was then revoked.

To cap twenty four hours of drama, within twelve hours of this taking place Lou Fabiano had apparently resigned from CAP - see the Professor signing off discussion. Exactly what he was resigning from is not clear, and the possibility remains that it could be a diversionary tactic to avoid the question raised, the clear evidence contained in the Cake Poker proposal to CAP of CAP's suspected ownership.


This whole matter has been chronicled in a series of You Tube videos from the APCW, owned by GPWA president Michael Corfman - see the reports of January 6th, January 9th, January 13th, January 16th and January 20th.


In addition to the question of Cardspike, there is also a CAP link to another CAP-certified operation, Absolute Slots, which came to light during the Cardspike discussions. This will be covered in a subsequent article, but discussion can be read on the GPWA forum in the Absolute Slots and Effective Media thread.

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Virgin Casino (Wagerworks software): forty years of non stop play needed to achieve these results in a fair game

Virgin Casino, franchise of the famous Virgin brand headed by entrepreneur Richard Branson, uses software provided by Wagerworks.

Yesterday, I wagered just over £6000 pounds at Virgin Casino, on a slot machine using initial starting bets of £1. In total, I made 1950 initial £1 bets.

After wagering those 1950 bets at £1 a pop, I had lost £1520.

This represents a loss rate of 78% on those initial wagers, and an overall loss rate of 23%.

The theoretical loss is £77, or 4%.

The probability of a losing £1520 in £1950 in initial wagering at £1 a time in this manner is one is a little less than 100,000.

This represents in the region of two royal flush "cycles" in video poker. And this is not just one hand, but 1950 hands.

As such, if you were to set out to attempt to replicate this monumental loss, you would need to play nearly 100,000 series of 1950 hands.

This would require a total of initial hands well in excess of 100,000,000.

Assuming it takes about four hours to wager in the region of 1500 hands in this manner, it would take in the region of 400,000 hours of play to achieve such a result.

This would take around 40 years to achieve. This is half the life span of the average human being.

There are some who will, quite rightly, say that anything can happen, and, as such, it is possible to see a result that would take half an average human lifetime to replicate in a fair game. That is the pragmatic stance.

My own stance?

I prefer to remain realistically and healthily cautious. In the face of such dismal evidence, it is not unreasonable to assume that there is a perfectly good liklihood that Virgin Casino, and WagerWorks software, is either 1) unfair or 2) can be adjusted to deliver an unfair game.

I will have solicited Virgin's feedback on this matter, and I will confront WagerWorks at their booth at the 2009 International Casino Exhibition. I will report back on their comments.


UPDATE January 20th

Virgin has got back to me. Since my results on the day were off the wall, they've looked at my overall play. Selected highlights:

On 14 January, your payout was - as you found - towards the lower end of what could be expected. If we take the whole game into account, the expected payout for the number of bets you made should be (using a 90% confidence interval) at least 76.7%. This means that your payout was within what could be expected, albeit unfortunate.

If we take the Gamble feature from the game specifically, this does not vary by game and so we can look at it across all games (you have also played Texas Tea and Wheel of Fortune Triple Action Frenzy). For this, your payout rate is 99.7% over 15,976 bets, slightly lower than the expected long-term payout of 100%.

Across all games that you have played, including the Gamble feature and the base game, your payout percentage is 99.83%. This is higher than the expected payout for any one of the games you have played, let alone the actual expected hold for your combination of games.

This doesn't tell me much I didn't already know, although the numbers are certainly interesting.

Does this prove that WagerWorks is rigged? No.

Does it prove that WagerWorks isn't rigged? No.

In fact, it doesn't say anything conclusive one way or the other. It's never possible to determine, taking results after the fact, whether software is rigged to deliver an unfair game, whether the odds are 100,000 to one or 10,000,000 to one.

The fact remains that in order to replicate an event as extreme as the event I experienced, it would be necessary to undertake my 1950 wagers close to 100,000 times.

The fact remains that this would take one person, playing non-stop, half an average human lifetime to achieve.

And in fairness, the fact also remains that my overall payout is 99.83%, which is better than expected.

Although I cannot prove that Virgin, or WagerWorks, is rigged, I remain sceptical. The software may be configfurable, when desired, to deliver an unfair game. Until definitive proof can be offered that proves Wagerworks fair, I will continue to treat it with extreme caution.


In 2004, a software project called "Fairdice" began development; its purpose was to establish whether online casino software was, in fact, fair, by combining numbers from random number generators both casino side and player side - there was some discussion in the Winneronline Fairdice thread.

Sadly, the project never got off the ground and appeared to close up. This is a pity, as it would have been an opportunity for online casinos to prove, once and for all, that their software was honest.

UPDATE February 23rd

Another weekend of heavy wagering on Wagerworks slots yielded less bad, but still disatrous, results: over £1000 lost on approximately £9000 initial wagering, excluding the gamble feature.

On the gamble feature, on the last day's play after logging in:

A few wins and losses.

Then eight straight losses.

One win.

Another eight straight losses.

A couple of wins.

Another eight straight losses.

That's twenty four losses with three wins.

When I did manage to string together a handful of wins, these were at the smallest and second-smallest, win denomination.

Each and every such bet after a bonus round (representing a largish win) lost.

I've given up on any remaining hopes I may have held out that the Wagerworks "gamble" feature, a theoretical 50/50 bet, is not either selectively riggable on an account basis or generally rigged as standard across all accounts. If it is "selectively rigged", then there is almost certainly a precedent for this in the Casino Bar test.

Hopefully, a full examination of all my gamble feature logs across all Wagerworks casinos will bear this out, although nothing will ever be proven. I will report on this as soon as such an analysis has been carried out.

UPDATE September 8th

Although I no longer play at Virgin, I've played the same slot and gamble feature elsewhere. Over just under £13,000 wagering I'm currently ahead £99. In addition to this, just prior to leaving Virgin for good I won £100 or so on a relatively small amount of wagering.

I'm hoping that the monumental loss that prompted this article was an aberration, particularly in consideration of the fact that my overall return from Virgin, at 99.83%, was very good.

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Cardspike and Casino Affiliate Programs: player non-payment and ownership allegations which may rock the industry

Cardspike Poker, a skin of the Cake Poker network, is the latest in a long line of rogue poker rooms indulging in malpractice of one kind or another. The situation has been neatly summarised in the Poker Affiliate Bible Cardspike Article, which I'll summarise:


Cardspike opened in September 2008; reports from affiliates about payment and player tracking problems quickly arose. Player payment issues followed on, and promises by the affiliate manager were unfulfilled. The player issues were apparently substantially resolved by mid November, but affiliate payment problems continued. There were many subsequent promises, none of which had been honoured by early 2009.

This would not necessarily be especially noteworthy, as matters of corruption in online poker are not new. However, the Cardspike issue is a horse of a different colour: in the CardSpike Poker Affiliates Want Answers From CAP article of January 2009, Gambling911's Christopher Costigan alleged that Cardspike was in fact the property of Casino Affiliate Programs, an influential casino affiliate networking site owned by Lou "The Professor" Fabiano, subject of my player database sale article.


Gambling911's reports are sometimes regarded with scepticism, so this would be less of a compelling revelation if it hadn't been effectively corroborated by Michael Corfman of the Gambling Portal And Webmasters' Association, who also owns Casino City as well as recently acquiring the Association Of Professional Casino Webmasters.

In the Cardspike / CAP / Gambling911 thread on the GPWA forum, Corfman states as follows:

I was actually told many months ago that the principals at CAP were the beneficial owners of Cardspike.

More recently I became aware that Cardspike had such a bad payment record that it should properly be considered a rogue operation.

Still, I kept quiet and did not say anything. Perhaps I should not have stayed quiet, but there are limits on what level of attack is appropriate against a competitor, especially when that competitor is quick to threaten lawsuits...a topic for another day.

But anyway, now that the cat is out of the bag, I can confirm that what I have been told is far worse than anyone might imagine.

My understanding is that principals at CAP, which claims to certify programs and represent affiliates, are running a rogue operation and ripping off affiliates on the side.

On being questioned about the veracity of the claims, Corfman goes on:

The information...is based on information I personally received from a number of distinct sources that I each consider to be highly credible.

I've actually had that information for a very long time, but, as I said, I didn't feel it was appropriate to broadcast that information at a time when I didn't view the operation was also rogue in nature with respect to players and affiliates.

It bears clarifying that the beneficial owner of a company is the person who receives all profits, or "benefits", from the company, as the owner would in the normal course of events, but who gives the ownership over to a trustee who is the "legal" owner, and whose name appears on all the relevant documents. As such, beneficial ownership is a useful tool for, amongst other things, cloaking the real owener's identity.


In the case of Cardspike, the legal owner is one "Domain Holdings Limited", a company registered in Gibraltar. The only meaningful information available on the internet about Domain Holdings is a Casino City listing, which lists all the sites owned by this company, including Cardspike. No other information is available, and the company does not appear to have a web site, nor any contact details beyond the physical address, given as Suite 14, Watergardens, Gibraltar. The name itself, "Domain Holdings", would appear to give a fairly clear indication of the nature of the business - that of holding / maintaining domains for clients. As such, Cardspike clearly has beneficial owners of some kind, whose identity is not made public.


In addition, the Gibraltar company registry is not publically open, requiring a subscription.

As such, Domain Holdings Ltd is highly inaccessible. This may well be to do with the nature of the service they offer, holding companies in trust for individuals who wish to remain anonymous.


The APCW, recent purchase of the GPWA, has been commenting on this matter - see their video reports of January 6th and January 9th.

The above report of January 9th provoked a very curious reaction from Casino Affiliate Programs, the company at the centre of the cloaked ownership allegations. In his Cyber stalking and worse by GPWA and APCW discussion thread, CAP owner Fabiano attacked the GPWA and APCW with some rather absurd hyperbole on the basis of the airing of a publically available web page which lists Fabiano's address, in the Nevada Secretary Of State register - see the Affiliate Media page:

J Toad and Michael Corfman just published my HOME address in their sick attack video. It's now broadcast via Youtube and their sites!!!!!!!

ANY sick bastard with a grudge can now reach out and harm my family. This is the sickest case of cyber stalking I have ever seen in my life!!!!

This is criminal and not civil.

Who appointed these assholes as inquistors and who gave them the right to examine my personal and business life and place my children and family in harms way????

I own seven businesses and stock in many companies what right does anyone have to investigate my personal affairs and endanger my family?

For What? What did I do to GPWA or APCW?

Michael and J Todd you are sick evil and wicked bastards. I could post YOUR home addresses too but I would NEVER sink that low. I am shcoked ANY business would operate like this and have the GALL to do this to peoples lives.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS!!!!!!!! CAN THIS FUCKING SICK CAMPAIGN OF HARRASSMENT STOP NOW???? DONT EITHER OF YOU HAVE ANYTHING ELSE IN YOUR LIVES OR BUSINESS TO DO THEN DOING THIS SICK SHIT!!! HOW DARE YOU????\

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT YOURSELVES IN A MIRROR OR SLEEP AT NIGHT!!! YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THIS INDUSTRY AND THE WORLD ACTUALLY!!!

Contrary to the claim made in this rather infantile outburst, the airing of publically-available information is not an offence. The reason the details are required by law to be public is that of the public interest, the public's right to know who is behind the companies they deal with. This is how it should be.

Why this childish and vastly inaccurate explosion from Fabiano? Maybe the best line of defence was seen as attack, thereby hopefully putting the other party on the defensive. I can see no other reason. Fabiano knows that his details are available for public consumption.

The address was subsequently removed from the video, with Corfman citing a desire to "take the high road" in the matter - presumably an allusion to the fact that the address in question was Fabiano's home, the public airing of which had caused some distress and presumably accounting in part for Fabiano's extreme overreaction. There were further comments in the APCW Perspectives Friday 01/09/09 discussion, along the same lines.


One of many spinoffs on this matter was a report issued by Brian "Jetset" Cullingworth, for his Infopowa service of casino news and trivia, which was bizarrely given more exposure than seemed warranted by Bryan Bailey of Casinomeister, in his affiliate forum war continues thread. Why Bailey chose to place a news item outside its usual less high-profile position in the news section, and then as a stand alone forum thread when there was already a relevant discussion in full swing in the Cardspike thread, seems odd. Additionally, the piece is an unnecessary trivialisation of a serious matter, beginning with the trite soundbite "time to jaw-jaw not war-war" and going on to present the whole matter as nothing more than forum hyperbole.


So why does it matter, and why does Infopowa miss the point completely?


In the first place, when it first appeared, Cardspike was recommended by, and given its own forum at, the CAP poker sister site Poker Affiliate Programs, under the same ownership team as CAP.

If CAP / PAP owned Cardspike, then they were promoting a room to their affiliates / players in which they had a direct financial stake, which would represent a conflict of interests and an absolute breach of acceptable ethics:

1) Posing as an impartial arbitrator for a company which, in fact, you own, is pure deceipt, the obvious outcome in the event of a dispute being that you will favour your company over the customers upon whose behalf you claim to act.

2) Your community members, the affiliates and a whichever players may read the forums, are the potential recipients of biased information as a result of your non-disclosure of your interest.

3) Your paying affiliate programme members are unwittingly funding their competition, because the funding recipient, CAP, is effectively a competeting affiliate programme.


In this regard, there is some interesting reading in the Poker Prop Cardspike Warning article, where the writer chronicles a series of events - banning of posters and deletion of threads - which is consistent with a substantial bias in favour of Cardspike over the affiliates / customers:

During mid to late November, many PAP members frustrated over unpaid affiliate commission began questioning CardSpike's PAP All-in Program status. Around this time, Warren and Lou (the Professor) became far more active at PAP than they had ever been in the past. In the days leading up to November 26, 2008 a number of CardSpike posts were deleted, and this led to outrage as many forum posters expressed their discontent for the censorship taking place.

November 26 is what many former active members refer to as ban day. On this day, PAP management laid down the law as they banned many of their longest standing members, deleted many references to Cardspike problems and complaints including entire threads, while locking others.

Over the next month posts related to CardSpike were largely ignored...Also during this time no less than 9 threads were deleted that either insinuated CardSpike was a scam, or spoke at all negatively about PAP or CAP.

If the above is a true record of events, it suggests a very clear conflict of interests.


Secondly, and on a more general note: if affiliates and their representatives are going to start owning, running and otherwise having interests in the online gambling operations they promote, then in the first place it's a rather sorry state of affairs, but which in the second place must be subject at the very least to absolute one hundred percent disclosure. If this sorry state of affairs, where the line between the advertiser and the advertised is completely obfuscated, must come about, then the customer has absolute right to know who is who and what interest he / she has in the promoted product.

If, on the other hand, non-disclosure of affiliate-owned and promoted sites becomes the norm, then we will see the scenario I've chronicled above happening over and over and over again, until a point at which the whole industry collapses in chaos.


As such, the ownership of Cardspike Poker must be established. If it is not, then this matter will leave a cloud over the participants. This will do a lot of harm to a lot of people.

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