Online gambling community outraged by the company behind Pacific Poker and 888 Casino

One of the most powerful online casino resource organizations, CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com (“CAP”)  announced today that they are revoking the certification of 888 Casino. The decision is in response to 888 Casino’s failure to reach an amicable resolution involving known content theft and blog spamming being performed by their top affiliates and consultants.

Gambling911.com recognizes CAP as one of the leading online gambling resource organizations.

Aside from CAP, 888 Casino and Pacific Poker have the highly regarded casino watchdog Bryan Bailey condemning their activity.

"Site scrapping and content theft are very serious issues that need to be halted now," wrote Bailey on his popular posting forum.  That forum also explains exactly what "site scrapping" is in more detail. 

A CAP spokesperson explained, “These illegal activities are negatively impacting thousands of affiliates and online marketers worldwide. There a number of programming teams operating with the approval of 888 Casino which are flooding search engines like Google and Yahoo with thousands of spurious search results. This angers searchers and makes finding legitimate destinations on the internet difficult if not impossible. These rogues are also robbing bandwidth and corrupting web logs with millions of commercial messages all linked to 888 Casino. This abuse of the system tarnishes the image of the industry as a whole and can not be allowed to continue.”

To resolve this issue CAP has been in negotiations with 888 Casino for the last six weeks, but so far they have declined to comply and have stated they are not interested in a resolution at this time.

CAP had been seeking the following action items from 888 Casino on behalf of their affiliate members:

1. Issue a public statement indicating that 888 Casino does not condone nor will they reward content theft or illegal marketing practices by their affiliates or marketing consultants. If affiliates or marketers are discovered to be engaged in these practices their accounts will be closed, they will be banned from the 888 affiliate program and their proceeds or commissions due forfeited.

2. Addition to the Affiliate Program Terms and Conditions a provision stating the above policy.

3. A good faith effort by 888 Casino to adhere to these policies now and in the future.

“ALL CAP Certified Programs must work vigorously to protect the rights of all of their affiliates, even if that means policing affiliates who maliciously hurt others for profit,” said Lou Fabiano, managing partner at CAP. “By condoning these actions we have no choice but to revoke 888 Casino’s certification, effective immediately.”

According to their website 888.com, 888 Casino’s flagship property, is one of the leading Casino and Poker Rooms on the Internet. Since its official launch in 1997, over 20 Million people have experienced 888com's exciting gaming action, making them the leading Online Casino. 

CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com is a trusted resource in online gaming industry with a rigorous certification process for casino programs. 888 Casino became a CAP certified partner in 2005.

The online gambling industry is not alone in condemning the alleged activities.

David Galbraith proprietor of a very popular news and information blog, had this to say about Cassava last year:

I disabled comments a while back because of the spam issues from gambling and porn sites, but noticed that 10% of my traffic was to inbound links to some poker site comments that I hadn't deleted.

The inbound linking is to game Google into indirectly boosting pagerank for the eventual destination using clustered keyword terms, a more sophisticated variant of placing outbound links in comments.

The traffic came from what appear to be affiliates of a CPA affiliate program site, 888.com, which in turn linked to poker sites that were owned by the same company as 888.com, operating out of the UK's Gibraltar.

These companies are owned by Cassava Enterprises, who, one might imagine, are a small, shady company, operating offshore.

However, it turns out that Cassava Enterprises are in the process of going public in the UK for an estimated $1.5 billion, underwritten by Credit Suisse First Boston.

"Similarly, Cassava Enterprises, owner of the 888.com site, has hired CSFB to advise it on a possible flotation. It is reported to be considering a listing that would value the business at more than £800m."

There are a number of reputable betting sites about to go public, but it seems odd that the illegal (since it costs me time and money) practice of spamming leads to companies planning to go public alongside a bunch of sketchy porn sites.

Since Cassava own the affiliate program that may have clients who are doing the spamming, if or when they have knowledge of it they will be obligated to act.

If, in turn, a significant number of 888.com affiliates are using pagerank gaming techniques via site spamming, then wiping out those affiliates could dramatically affect their revenues and hence the IPO price.

Imagine if Amazon, planning to IPO, had been involved directly or even indirectly with using mass spamming for its marketing, or if a significant portion of their revenues was based upon affiliates that were operating fraudulently, without them knowing. Is that what is happening here?

Since the time of the posting, 888 Holdings (Cassava Enterprises) has begun trading. 

Gambling911.com and Jenny Woo will be taking center stage during CAP's Spring Break celebration in Miami Beach May 20 through 23, which immediately follows the GIGSE, the online gambling industry's leading trade event.  Hundreds of people will be attending this year's CAP event in Miami Beach More information can be found here

The Palms Hotel has already been filled up by CAP attendees.  Due to the overwhelming demand and increased registrations, CAP has blocked rooms at the uber hot National Hotel, a favorite of Gambling911.com Execs. 

----

Christopher Costigan, www.gambling911.com

Originally published May 5, 2006 8:08 pm EST