GGPoker Cuts Off Vanessa Kade Affiliate Revenue Over Anti-Bilzerian Stance

08:27
11 Mar

Having a principled opinion in the poker world is often a sure path to losing a revenue stream, a lesson learned by poker pro Vanessa Kade in her dealings with Instagram playboy and trust-fund poker baby Dan Bilzerian, with the result now being that GGPoker has cut off the revenue stream of Kade, who was formerly part of the site’s affiliate network.

Kade was among the most outspoken people in poker over GGPoker’s signing of Bilzerian late last year, though protests against financially rewarding “Bilz” for his misogyny and general societal uselessness spread far and wide. Kade castigated GGPoker for the Bilzerian signing, noting that it represented the very opposite of poker’s always-uphill movement to make the game more welcome to all underrepresented demographics, including women.

Bilzerian infamously responded to Kade at the time, “Quiet hoe, nobody knows who you are.” GGPoker threw its weight further behind Bilzerian, simply by declining to take any meaningful action regarding the disgraceful Bilzerian outburst.

There was still the matter of Kade, though, who remained on GGPoker’s affiliate payroll. On March 9, Kade announced on Twitter that she had been terminated as an affiliate by GGPoker:

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Kade also posted a partial screen grab of a text message from GGPoker’s affiliate manager that informed her of the termination.

“Hey, Vanessa,” the text began, “I’m sure you were expecting this message to come at some point, I need to close your affiliate account. Affiliates are partners and you clearly terminated that relationship a few months back, I’m simply finalizing it by closing the account.”

Later, the message added:

“To call us out as misogynistic is completely inaccurate and offensive to everyone who works here especially the women.”

GGPoker recently ran a charity event supporting International Women’s Day, in which it claimed to have raised and contributed over $10,000 to give to unnamed women’s charities. However well-purposed, though, that promotional event was widely viewed as a salve to counter widespread criticism over the Bilzerian fiasco. Meanwhile, Bilzerian himself likely receives far more than that in payments for his continuing spokesman role, while presumably increasing GGPoker’s appeal to Bilzerian’s misogynistic fanboy following.

Kade noted her termination came just one day after International Women’s Day, itself a curious coincidence. She also declared that though she hadn’t actively promoted GGPoker in nearly two years, the termination allowed GGPoker to confiscate her ongoing revenue stream from customers she had previously brought to the site.

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