For those of you that are gambling affiliates, you’ll know of Poker Affiliate Listings (PAL), the website of choice for poker affiliates. Over the past months I have grown weary of the constant battle to get affiliates some transparency to make smarter decisions.
I’ve decided to leave PAL for a number of reasons, for real this time. I’ve done it several times before, for a couple of months at a time. There is a cycle that I’ve been going through for a while now. It involves a 2 month break, returning to the forum and posting again… then getting pissed off with the bullshit and posers until I leave again.
I’m not the sort of person that would normally make a big deal out of these sorts of things, which is why I didn’t make a post on the forum itself. I simply changed my email and password so I won’t be able to return, and changed my status to “no longer a member.”
I feel that nobody has the balls to tell the truth anymore in this business, in relation to gambling affiliates, other than Jim who is known as Poker Prop. The only other person that is doing a decent job of commenting on the industry is Bill Rini. I’ve had the pleasure of having beers on several occasions with Bill, and he really knows his stuff and a guy that I trust a lot.
That being said, why is everyone afraid to speak out? I know it’s just not me, because on a daily basis when I post something “controversial” I’ll get multiple messages like “dude, you said everything I was thinking, but didn’t want to say!” That’s close to a direct quote from yesterday after I tried to tackle the latest issue of the Aced affiliate program shutting down.
Gambling Affiliate Program Failures
Brandon Berndt was in charge of the Aced affiliate program from the beginning. He has widely been built up as one of the great minds of the industry and the best affiliate program coordinator.
I haven’t met Brandon, but he has always been good to me. This isn’t a personal attack on him (or anyone), but I feel it is important to state the facts here instead of all the bullshit arse sucking going on at the forums.
Since I have been a gambling webmaster Brandon has been involved in two different affiliate programs, which to the best of my knowledge, he was in charge of. The first one was Chan Poker, it closed down and all the players along with the affiliate program was moved to Aced. This was dealt with swiftly, to his credit, but everyone is missing the point. The program closed down. How many mini sites did the affiliates build? How many sites did they add Chan Poker to because Berndt was in charge? How much time was put into promoting them by affiliates? How much money was spent purchasing links and promoting? The list goes on.
Noone was told what the real reason was. When approached many months later, some answer of “there’s nothing to tell” was given. This in itself is bad enough, after all the time and money that had been pumped into this program.
Now we move onto Aced. The program that had been pumped up as the knight in shining armour after the Chan Poker accounts were moved to them. Let’s be honest though, this room sucked from the get go, and is on the Merge network that sucked. You’d think people would have learned not to push programs based solely on the affiliate coordinator, but no.
Affiliates continued to spread the word about how great the Aced poker program is, with little or no consideration of the company itself, how bad the network is and the past performance of a Berndt run program. In the end, as many of us warned people, the program shut down. Gave people no notice even though another affiliate stated that he knew this 6 months ago, and the accounts have been moved once again.
I’m sure you are now thinking that people have finally caught on? Nope. The general consensus is that “programs fail all the time” and “Brandon Berndt is still awesome.” Now that’s a mighty fine reputation for someone with a record of 0/2.
What’s going to happen now? My prediction is the same as what happened when Greg Powell and any other issue at PAL that paints the clique in a bad light. Berdnt will now go missing for a month of two. He will then return in magnificent fashion with a new program he is in charge of. It will be plastered all over the forums as the best program in the history of poker, and that if Brandon Berndt is in charge, you can be sure that you’re in good hands and won’t be fucked over. To make money in this industry you need to get behind programs with solid people in charge, and he’s going to make you a ton of cash!!!!!!!!!!!
Shows that knowing the right people can get you a long way in this industry, despite your performance. The score 0/2.
Now let’s move onto the next member of the clique, Greg Powell. Greg is widely acclaimed in this industry for being a great mind as well. He is Jeremy’s right hand man, and gets the most coverage on the forums because of it.
Cardspike is one of the modern day fuck ups, the program that cheated affiliates and players out of money, a lot of money. Who was at the helm during that time, Greg Powell. He went “missing” during the time is all went down… even though he was seen browsing on other affiliate forums. He never answered any questions, and was never held accountable for his actions. The forums on PAP were on fire calling for his blood. Lucky he knows the right people, who were able to cover him up and clear the way for him to return months later without any sign of a tarnished reputation.
The issue was put down to Greg being ignorant about the whole thing and having his hands tied due to contractual arrangements. What a load of fucking bullshit. Seriously, Lou who was found to be a main culprit was well known to be a cheater and scammer. I had been in the industry for less than 6 months at the time, and even I knew what was going on behind the scenes. But, Greg was ignorant of all this, despite knowing Lou for years and most significant people in the industry.
How Greg Powell got away with this can only be put down to well known influences on PAP and PAL smoothing it over on his behalf. If Greg wasn’t friends with Jeremy and other significant people, he would never have been able to get a job in this industry ever again.
Moving on now, after somehow this all blows over, Greg returns to the forums several months later with a big bang! The Tower affiliate program. A program that everyone knew of, but didn’t really push, for a reason. But now that Greg was there, it was slammed all across PAL as the next big thing. People were shitting themselves to be apart of the Greg Powell bandwagon.
Senior members even got in on this one, after feeling he got a rough deal out of the last one. Tower went up on affiliate sites all around the Internet. It was pumped up to be one of the best converting programs, with numerous threads going on about how it was the hottest shit going.
The result on this one, can only be reported in terms of hearsay. I talked to between 8-12 different affiliates, with a wide range of incomes. I didn’t talk to one affiliate, who said they made remotely the amount of money they were expecting. The income was little to none, in every case. And I know some pretty damn successful affiliates. Throw in some PAL moderators as part of the group I’m talking about.
In my eyes, and the affiliates that promoted them, it was a huge flop. Powell went from a program that blatantly stole from affiliates, to one that flopped on them. Sure, Tower is a decent program for some, but was nowhere near the heights that PAL and Greg built it up to be.
The Final Score – 0/4 and Counting
- Brandon Berndt: 0/2
- Greg Powell: 0/2 (1 more flop pending)
- Jeremy Enke: Nothing to do with him, right?
- Affiliates: Screwed, fucked, robbed for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nothing to do with Berndt, Powell, Enke or PAL right? Nope, just happened to be that no less than 4 programs in a row failed, flopped or stole without their knowing.
The point I am trying to make here is purely about the performance of the PAL clique programs. When will people finally wake up and realise they get massive sign on bonuses for just being who they are… which is a friend of Jeremy’s and an avenue to slam free ads on a popular affiliate forum. Sure we all have to do what we can to make a dollar, but at what point do they become accountable? How can so many failures result in a strong reputation?
Whether you like it or not, the answer is Jeremy Enke. They are successful by association, Powell especially. I’d be willing to bet a fair amount that if he wasn’t friends with Enke, he wouldn’t have a future in this field.
It’s time to wake up and realise you don’t have to be friends with the clique to be successful. You don’t have to be scared of posting the truth and you don’t have to be in fear of your reputation being tarnished.
Instead of coming to me and thanking me, grow some balls and speak out. I can understand that people don’t want the drama and the bullshit that goes with not going with the grain. But come on, do you want to be a sheep all your life.
I’m not sure about you guys, but I can make decisions without unsubstantiated hype. I don’t need to follow a crowd to be successful, especially one that is only concerned about their own back pocket.
With over 1000 posts I’ve found it necessary for me to move on. The information being posted is weak at best, if not deceiving. There are some moderators that simply can’t be trusted, and I’m not willing to participate where people are afraid to say what they want for fear of not fitting in with the crowd. It’s mind boggling to me, how many full time affiliates feel the same way as me, but don’t want to say anything. Maybe they are making a smarter business decision by being friends with everyone, but I’m not one to sit and take it up the arse.
Confirming My Point
A perfect example of what I’m talking about is the hype surrounding Eduardo. I personally know of five other people that have been fucked over by him in recent months. His designs are copied and ripped from previous jobs he’s done, they aren’t unique and his communication is appalling. With cases ranging from him simply refusing to change things because “he knows best” and that he wants to send it to the coder because the design is awesome, when the client is clearly unhappy. The two hour, $700 jobs he pushes through are low in quality and IMO, complete rip offs.
Out of the people I know that have had these problems, two happen to be a super affiliate. One replied “there’s no point trying to convince the Eyenod fans” and another exclaimed “wow, I thought I was the only one. Most of the people on PAL don’t know shit anyway.”
Why don’t the majority of people know about this? Arse sucking and clique members approval of him. Plain and simple.
Don’t be a sheep. Trust you own instincts.
