Lately it seems the online poker industry has come under a dark cloud. Whether it be the Absolute Poker debacle or the disqualification of the WCOOP champion; Many poker affiliates are left wondering what the heck this industry is turning into.

I was actually inspired to write this post after reading a excerpt on Mark Cubans blog about the Media and Vulnerability. What happened with Absolute Poker is reprehensible, there is no doubt about this. But for us poker affiliates, it is not the end of the world. I don’t see this one incident throwing the brakes on new online poker sign-ups. Nor do I see it ruining the greatest affiliate market I have ever worked in. Some people may disagree, but for poker affiliates the UIGEA was ten times worse than this incident.

Let’s look at the AP situation for what it is. Providing the current evidence on 2+2 and Pocketfives is correct, it was one corrupt member of the upper management team. Corruption at executive levels and stealing money happens quite often in Corporate America. I can think of several examples off the top of my head. I am not saying it is right, in fact if anything I am saying that it should hurt AP badly. And myself as a poker affiliate, I will not be pushing AP on my sites.

But the point I am trying to make is that we can talk about how terrible AP is and all the corruption till we are blue in the face. Or we can accept it, see what happens next, and move on running our businesses. The potential to make a ton of money within the poker affiliate market is just as good now as it was 3 years ago. Maybe not in the U.S., but certainly in several European regions and other emerging markets.

Before I began working in the poker affiliate industry I did my time as a wage slave working for shitty bosses. I can tell you first hand, there is no comparison to the rewards and freedom working in this industry allows you. Personally I am pretty pissed about the whole situation, but there is nothing myself or any affiliate can do to change it. I am not going to let it get in the way or consume any more of my time during the day. I am going to let whatever happens happen.

To end this blog post I want to share one of my favorite steps from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

Step 3 - Put First Things First - For poker affiliates, this means not wasting 4 hours of your valuable time getting caught up in forum squabbles or engulfing yourself in the industry drama. The number one task you have every day should be doing something productive that in one way or another is helping to grow your business.

In closing, this really is the best affiliate industry in the world. We should all be thankful to work in such a great industry that has so many great people in it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Affiliate Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.