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.

I have a busy week with a lot on my plate right now. It amazes me how many emails and private messages I get in the course of 24 hours. That is my #1 goal when I get into the office in the morning….to get caught up on emails. Well, and if I don’t get CakePoker up on PAW, I imagine Shenaz will not be too happy. That could ruin the chance of running up future bar bills on the CakePoker tab at CAP London. I better move that up the priority list.

I was re-reading through a post I have bookmarked about linkbaiting. I have had a few awesome link baiting experiences in the past 12 months. Getting links isn’t as hard as you would think. The rest of this blog post is pretty worthless from a business standpoint, so there is my one contribution of useful information to my fellow poker affiliates.

A quick shout out to all the fellow Chicago Bear fans. Go Bears. I need a miracle throughout the rest of the season. I am involved in a prop bet with my neighbor where I am going to get my head shaved on New Years eve if the Bears have a worse season record than the Packers. Hell I thought that would be lock before the season started.

The neighbors on my street threw a great party over the weekend.  Here are some pictures of my Halloween costume. Basically it’s an old lady with a baby on her back. Inflatable arms and legs on the baby. I love Halloween.

I ended hooking up with this random chick at the party too. Clearly I made sure she got “over served” and taken advantage of. I ended up taking her home with me too….. sweeet.

Happy Friday everyone. Another week is done and in the books. Actually I can’t believe it’s 1:30 and I am still in my office working. Typically on Fridays I like to take the afternoon off and spend time with the wife and kids.

About the post from yesterday…….. you all got RickRolled. <——–Funnest $8 I have ever spent on a domain.  I really don’t even feel like typing the words Absolute Poker into this blog anymore. I’m so sick of all the drama and new breaking information each day. Finally AP came out yesterday in a letter to Adam at p5’s and basically stated that their software had been compromised and they will be making a statement shortly. Hopefully they fully disclose what happened, reimburse the players who were cheated, and press charges against the douche bags that orchestrated this. Considering how many players are still playing at AP however, I don’t see this whole incident putting them out of business any time soon. If anything it is getting rid of the professional players, and will probably make the site a giant fish bowl.

Now, onto more exciting news. My long time friends in the industry Dan and Bryan have launched a new site called GamblingThemes.com. They are selling wordpress themes made specifically for poker and casino webmasters. I have seen a lot of WP themes, and I have to say these guys have impressed me. Being the good friend and super affiliate that I am, I was able to twist their arm into allowing me to promote the product with an exclusive 20% discount.

So many webmasters and affiliates starting out waste countless months screwing around with awful html frontpage sites. I have always been a believer in content management solutions. And there is really no simpler CMS than wordpress.

I am actually thinking about purchasing one of these themes myself and hiring some content writers to go to work. I have a few older domains I am thinking of using. I am leaning on maybe having a custom template made for firehousecasino.com and promoting both casinos and poker. Or I may do one for onlinepokertells.com. I like that domain simply because it has been registered for a few years and has the words online poker in the url. Not that I really need to throw another iron in the fire, but what the hell.

Plus, if I am going to outsource most of the content, it really shouldn’t be to time consuming.

At any rate, here is the exclusive promo I was able to work out. If you do decide to purchase make sure you use the promo codes and buy through that page.  If not……. well I guess just pay the extra 20%.

Have a great weekend!

Holy Shit, I can’t believe I am actually going to be the one to break this exclusive story! I am releasing this bombshell video below that will shock the entire poker world.

Who would of thought that these guys could pull this off, not to mention the details they go through in this video of how elaborate of a scheme this was. I still don’t understand how this Rick guy was able to infiltrate the servers, nontheless you can watch the video and judge for yourself.

AP Confession Video