GPWA offer their version of events. If CAP survives this it can only be without Fabiano. This is a Shakespearean tragedy playing out before our eyes.
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From GPWA forum
The events of yesterday evening were pretty upsetting to me personally.
Alex Pratt, who works with the good folks at iGaming Business, and who does much of the hard work of organizing and putting on the events was also pretty clearly upset about what happened. I've known Alex for a long time, and have a great deal of respect for him, as I believe all in the industry who know him well do also.
And Warren of Affiliate Media - the company that operates the CAP website, and the company that partners with Alex's company in putting on the CAP events was clearly not happy about the situation either.
I'm going to try to avoid repeating what J.Todd said in his post earlier in this thread. He was present in the hotel lobby when the events occurred, and I was not, and the situation as he describes it is consistent with what I was told by Steven and by others present in the hotel lobby at the time.
I came down from a suite in the hotel when J.Todd called me about Steven to try to find out what had happened to him and where he was because all I knew from the phone call I received was that Steven had been forcefully taken away in the elevator from the hotel lobby.
So I took the elevator from the lobby level to street level, and found Steven outside the hotel. Steven was pretty shaken, but seemed to be doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Steven did not want to go back into the hotel at the time since he has been told the police would be called and he would be arrested if he came into the hotel again, but neither did he want to have to stay outside for long.
I went back inside and spoke with the three security guards that were inside the door to prevent Steven from coming inside. I explained that I did not believe they had a right to remove him from the hotel, and asked who they were. One said that he worked for the hotel and the other two security guards said they were hired by the event organizer.
I was told the order to remove Steven was given by the event organizer, and that I would need to talk with them. I agreed to be escorted to the event organizers office so I could discuss the matter with them. After a short delay I spoke with a woman who worked with Alex as part of the event organization team. She apologized for what had happened, and said that Steven should not have been removed from the building, and that he would be allowed to return inside.
Later I learned that the order to have Steven removed was given by Lou. I also learned that Lou was asked to leave the hotel by the other parties involved in organizing the event, that the hotel security staff were told that they were not to accept such order from Lou in the future, and that any future orders of that sort needed to be given by Alex.
When I went back outside to let Steven know he could come back into the hotel, I found him listening to an angry Lou who was waiting to leave in a taxi with his wife. While I was there Lou made a number of comments that were threatening to both Steven and I, and also that were threatening to J.Todd, and asked that we bring J.Todd outside. When Steven asked Lou if he really meant the threats that were being made, he confirmed that was the case and said we could publish it.
Shortly after I had gone back outside to see Steven, Alex and Warren also came outside. I learned that they had sent Lou outside to take a cab because they wanted him to leave the conference hotel. They made sure Lou got in the cab and we went inside. The four of us agreed to talk about the situation and to try to put things in a better place.
The four of us meet for a good hour, and we all were in agreement that it was not good for anyone for this sort of discord to exist.
Warren talked about wanting to work together as partners, and that an apology on our part would be a first step in making that happen. Personally, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the concept that we owe him an apology and he does not owe us one, but the conversation was in general a positive one with neither of us wanting public confrontations.
I talked with Alex later in the evening. As I said at the beginning of this post, I have known Alex for a long time and respect him very much. Alex said he was going to try to see that we were given passes for the conference because he thought that was the right thing to happen. This morning, while I was typing in this post, I received a text message from Alex letting me know that was the case. Thanks Alex, and thanks Warren for agreeing to Alex's request.
Personally, I just want to put this whole upsetting episode behind me. And I want to make sure that those who are upset about the situation don't associate it with Alex or Warren because it was not the doing of either of them.
Michael
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Executive Director,
www.GPWA.org
CEO, CasinoCity.com
Friend to the Village Idiot
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Apparently Lou has had a miraculous recover in his health if he's asking someone obviously in a hell of a lot better shape than he is in to step outside with him...real professional of Lou there huh...
