Raj Vishnu-NASA-Ugly Props

[bgeorgia]

Read about it here :mad:

[jlpblade]

"On page 59, in a chapter about offshore gambling and the websites that cover the industry, Konik wrote:

"One site features comically horrible articles written by someone who works as a paid consultant to the marketing department of a larcenous very big operation."

Hmmmmmmm, wonder who he's referring to?.....

Mark Del Popolo is the boss of a controversial and relatively new Internet sportsbook called Camelot, which has operations in both Belize and Canada."


That article was flat out terrible journalism. For those not in the know would believe that MarkDel was the flak. Brian and Jeff I don't think you believe this to be true. You both have mentioned who is the real flak for nasa. To publish this on your site is bs. To need to win your fued with MD to be so great as to sink to this low ...

Jeff

P.S. I'm not an acct member at camelot, nor a shill for MD, but this fued has moved me from pro-bw to neutral to considering changing sides.

[Jeff]

Jeff......I don't agree. It clearly goes from one topic to the next. The previous sentence speaks of a very large operation and the next speaks of a very new operation, which is far from big.

As far as a need to "win" a feud, we could really care less about any feud. We have lots to do. Lots of things going on. Others have one thing on their minds.......bettorsworld.

But NO ONE will succeed in trying to dicate what we can or can't have an opinion about. Someone doesn't like our opinion, too friggin bad. Those who have followed the site and know me know they can contact me for an explanation on any opinion I have.

Anyone who wants to claim "saint" status had better also criticize those that regularly promote the nonsense that gets written about this site and the individuals involved. If you haven't noticed an orchestrated slanderous attack against this site then you are looking in the wrong place.

[hiptwo]

kind of a one sided article in my opinion! what controversial about camelot? is it the fact that their new? or the fact mark del post at another site. i would think the question would be "do they pay" what the hell does being a lawyer have to do with running a book? or for that matter jay cohen(i thought he turned himself in) or bill clinton have to do with anything.

[bgeorgia]

This what it has to do with.....

Wow, you guys are fucking worse than I thought...I can't believe I actually
used to post at your site and respect your views on books, now it turns out
that you would slander someone who has done nothing but pay every player who
has won, not one incident of even slightly late pay. But you defend GoTo and
until recently Direcbet when you knew their troubles...wow...you guys have
no integrity. You knew Reno, Dogs and Fatboy weren't shills for me, but you
lied and called them that just to make me look bad...wow.

Well, I've pretty much had enough, so now it's time to find out which of you
has any balls.

Assuming I can trust you not to call the cops, which based on Raj's article
is a big question mark, I'll come and meet you guys at Brian's place in
Connecticut and we'll settle this however you want...hands, knives, pistols,
it doesn't matter to me, you choose. There's two of you so it will be a fair
fight...of course, I'd be willing to bet that it's more likely you scumbags
will forward this to a law enforcement agency and try and pass it off as a
threat rather than do the manly thing and back up your words with your ass.

But guys like you never show up for meetings like that, you'd rather hide
behind your keyboards like the pussies that you are. I'll even sweeten the
pot for you...I'll bring 10 grand cash on me and it's yours if you can take
it off me.

Just tell me the day and time...I already know the location...


i guess if camelot PAYS these actions are looked at as insignificant. We have a right to an opinion and we will voice it. No threats from del or any other big mouthed new yorkers who mistakenly think they intimidate us.

[hiptwo]

i'll stand by my statement about the article. how mark del handled the situation was dead wrong and stupid. not a good way to promote yourself. we all have done and said stupid things in anger that we wish we could undue.

[bgeorgia]

Bettorsworld would certainly entertain banter back and forth with posters if it was having to do with someone whom we consider a true businessman.

the fact that you are more concerned about an article that we stand behind and make very little over the posts and emails that mark del has authored are troublesome at best.

are we questioning there payout record? No. We don't know what it is and we don't care. What we seriously question and will continue to question is his affiliations, his DISHONESTY in his cheap attempts to discredit us and his threats of driving to connecticut with gun and knives in hand.
bworld will never recommend a book that has a mark del in any postion of authority. YOU might think he is a great guy and certainly his schtick has fooled numerous people at HIS website mw. however, he has not fooled the people of bettorsworld and never will.

play their at your own risk is all we can tell you. good luck! you will need it.

bg

[Hartley]

Obviously Mark's comments were wrong (no one should threaten bodily harm to another person), but Raj Vishnu's article was worse. Mark obviously wrote an angry e-mail after thinking he was being slandered in an article but it doesn't change the fact that BW published that article in the first place.

I probably risk a long term friendship with Brian and Jeff for saying that, but in all the articles I wrote over the years for Bettorsworld, never once did I set out to attack a particular individual. My articles have always tried to be ones that were based on facts and sometimes "what if" scenarios, but they delt with the betting industry, not taking pot shots at people I didn't care for. I've seen that technique done in the past with other "journalists" and never cared for it then either. I also didn't like the way Raj threw Jay Cohen's name in there as if he was a hardened criminal. I think all the betting sites agree that Jay is a hero l in the betting world's eyes, not a criminal.

I'm not sure I understand the feud between Bettorsworld and Mark Del (personally I've never had any problems with him), but the bottom line is that BW was wrong for publishing an article that singled him out. I also think it was wrong to lump the "story" into an article that based on its title, had nothing whatsoever to do with Mark or Camelot.

Don't get me wrong Jeff and Brian I think Mark's e-mail to you was wrong (and it appears he even acknowleges that at MW), but I also think you overstepped the line by letting Raj Vishnu's article go out as is. And 2 wrongs don't make a right.

Just my opinion anyways.

[ 10-04-2001: Message edited by: Hartley ]

[Jeff]

To reiterate, none of this has anything to do with the article. This has do do with our not having a favorable opinion of camelot. Which we have every right to have for a variety of reasons.

The post entitled threat number two should be titled threat number 3....at least three. Because there were previous threats long before this.

Hartley, maybe we should crawl into a corner and only have opinions about books that allow us to? And of course we'll only give good opinions because otherwise they might beat us up!

That's really what this is about. This guy is trying to dictate what can and can't be said. Not only who we can have an opinion on, but who anyone can have an opinion on, because if you don't agree, according to him, you must be an asshole.

Once again, support this garbage and only the players will suffer. This industry has come to far to let people like that take it back to the stone ages.

Personally I have no use for anyone who would support this garbage. I'd rather close the site down.

[Hartley]

Jeff I hear you and I can't really comment because I've never seen the threats. The feud between yourselves and Mark is something you'll have to deal with between yourselves.

My concerns (and I believe Hiptwo's also), is about an article that we believe is not written objectively. FWIW, it's the type of article I would expect to see written by a "watchdog" in a monthly Pennsylvania newspaper, not on bettorsworld.

Obviously the choice to publish it or not was your own, but the fact that 2 regular posters with over 5 years each and 7,500 combined posts sees a real problem with the article should tell you something. It has nothing to do with the individuals themselves it has to do with a journalistic style that I think is dangerous and one that I hope bettorsworld won't continue to use in the future.

[bgeorgia]

hartley,

you have sadly sold out. here are the facts.
1) there is NOTHING in that article that is not true.

2) your concern is more for the reputation that you have bought into than is the safety of bettorsworld owners and its family members.

3) you have bought into the del schtick and have sold out on bettorsworld who paid you MONTHLY despite your serios lack of effort.

4) we have been threatened yet it has minimized by people like yourself who have bought into the camelot bullshit.

5) we have voiced FACTS and an OPINION. One that we stand by.

bg

[alec]

Originally posted by Jeff:
To reiterate, none of this has anything to do with the article. This has do do with our not having a favorable opinion of camelot. Which we have every right to have for a variety of reasons.

Jeff,

So what are these reasons?

Let me put it this way: do you have any reasons other than the relationships between BW and Mark?

[ 10-04-2001: Message edited by: alec ]

[cjd333]

Wow! How sad all of this has become...

For those that have no clue where this REALLY all started, here it is:

Brian made the following comment in the thread below in response to MarkDel.

we will have no choice but to believe that a strong affiliation with mw is a sign of weakness in the book. as people continually post about bworld in a negative fashion on that site and you act as a ringleader of that same sight we cannot even consider your book as anything more than a book who preys on the ignorant posters of mw who have nothing else to discuss except fabrications about our web site.

Link to thread: http://www.bettorsworld.com/cgi-bin/...c&f=2&t=006795

It escalated from there but the insinuation that any book affiliated with MW is a sign of weakness for that book was UTTERLY FREAKING HILARIOUS! Anyone who's been gambling offshore longer than 60 days could see through that pile of crap!

As to the issue at hand, Hartley is DEAD ON RIGHT. Mark's threat to Brian and Jeff was EXTREMELY STUPID. He knows it and so does everyone else. AND this so-called "article" about Camelot was just as STUPID.

Just like the point you make, Brian, about who cares if Camelot pays, who cares if it's true that MarkDel is a lawyer from N.Y.? What does THAT have to do with anything?
But that wasn't the purpose of that article was it? No, it was a simple smear campaign.

You two are obviously paranoid in that you both seem to think MarkDel is supposedly trying to stop you from voicing your opinions about him or Camelot or God knows what else. That's not true at all. What he's trying to do is protect the reputation of a small but growing book that he has worked his ass off to build from the ground up. You spew out Words like "Controversial" which is anything BUT a valid description of Camelot. You have NOTHING to back it up with, just pure National Enquirer like statements!

The bottom line is that you have gone VERY LOW into the trenches for material now. BW is becoming the Tabloid Rag of Gambling info sites. Talk about Clintonesque...You take something and try and turn it into something it's not, all so you can "show the world" that your opinion will not be drowned out.

Oh you're every bit entitled to your opinion. No questions about that. But what you two have yet to figure out is that pretty soon the only ones left voicing their opinions will be the two of you! Take a look at this thread. 11 replies (12 with mine) and 6 of them are from you two.

You just don't "get it" that nobody gives a shit about this tit for tat BS. It's not about "buying into" what MW or RX or BW believes or prints. That's NOT what players are interested in.

Now you tell someone who is probably the OLDEST poster here (in terms of time not age)and one of its best and brightest contributors, Hartley, that he's a "sellout" because he thought the article was a sleezy bunch of tabloid junk. Hiptwo said the same thing about the article. It was terrible and irresponsible. God knows how many longtime posters are shaking their heads after reading that piece of junk. :rolleyes:

By all means, keep the BWorld Enquirer rolling with that delightful mix of fact and fiction. Sooner or later you're just gonna drive away everyone except for the poor occassional shmuck who wanders in off some obscure search engine listing. And all for what? Revenge? Showing the world your opinion counts? What's the value in this to your Visitors? NOTHING at all.

Here's an old-time math lesson for you:

Small amount of Visitors = Small amount of hits

Small amount of hits = Small amount of Advertisers

Small amount of Advertisers = Small amount of money

Small amount of Money = More Bills than Money

More Bills than Money = No Bettorsworld!!!

Stop publishing that Tabloid Garbage and focus on the bread and butter, THE VISITORS!
I severely doubt you'll do that but just thought I'd say it anyways. :rolleyes:

[ 10-05-2001: Message edited by: cjd333 ]

[Hartley]

Brian I figured that would be your attitude and it's unfortunate. Regardless of whether the article is true or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Raj Vishnu (who I never had anything negative to say about until this story), put up an article on an individual for no other reason than to make him look bad.

Here's a parallel. When Kenneth Star started digging through the trash for stuff on Clinton, most Americans condemned him because they though his inquiry was inappropriate and un-American. Regardless of "the facts" about Clinton, the public only cared about the fact that Star was a shit disturber who's only purpose was to try and ruin the man.

As for myself, who did I sell out to?

Do I work for MW - no!

Do I still run the Nascar contest here for free and have for months - yes!

Do I have anything personally against Mark Del - No!

Do I think Scott Landau is a nice guy and has received a bad rap here for no reason - Yes!

Do I think Mark's e-mail to you guys was inappropriate - Yes!

Did I state that - Yes!

Did I badmouth Bettorsworld anywhere else? - NO!!!!!!

You are correct that I hadn't the time to put a lot into the site so I voluntarily stepped down from it. I didn't ask for anything in return. And I think if you go back to the year when I was paid by this site you'll see that I was doing quite a bit for fair compensation.

[Bman66]

Above, Jeff wrote,

"Personally I have no use for anyone who would support this garbage. I'd rather close the site down."


Jeff, if you're not careful, that's exactly what going to end up happening to this site. Who are you trying to fool? It's no coincidence that so many good posters have been banned from this place. Hell, even a longtime standby like Hartley sees the writing on the wall. One other thing, please re-read cjd333's post. It pretty well sums things up nicely.


Bman66