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I first came across Ted on the CasinoMeister and Casino Affiliate
Programs Forums back in the beginning of 2005. I was still working
for Ladbrokes in Gibraltar and had a few months earlier in August
2004, registered the Online Casino Reviewer domain name. Now for
anyone who has worked for an operator will know, setting up and
running an affiliate site, in essence promoting competitors to your
employer is not looked on in a favourable light.
Well after a couple of months of reading Ted's posts on both forums,
I decided to PM him and take him into my confidence. That is
probably one of the wisest things I have ever done as a webmaster.
Ted in short was a great help and from that moment became a very
good friend of mine, who I had the pleasure of meeting on several
occasions at various conferences.
There is a saying it is who you know and not what you know. Well in
the case of Ted this most certainly rang true. It became very
quickly apparent that Ted was highly regarded and well thought of by all
his peers in the industry.
His knowledge of the industry was second to none and more
importantly he was as honest as they come. If he thought something
was BS, he would say so and would have no qualms who it would
offend.
Ted was very opinionated and would 99% of the time believe he was
right. But this was bourne out by the fact that he was invariably
right. Even individuals who disagreed with Ted, held a deep amount
of respect for him, as he was first and foremost a lovely human
being and someone I am proud to say was my friend.
The first time I met Ted in person was at the ICE in 2006 and we
both were invited out by 32Red for dinner during that week. Ted was
exactly the same in the flesh as his online persona and we got on
great and from there on in our friendship was cemented.
To the extent that in January 2009, Ted along with Casinomeister,
JetSet and Simmo! came down to stay in my home town Bath for the
weekend instead of attending the now infamous CAP Euro of that year.
We had a great weekend and it is just a shame I never got round to
taking him to experience a proper football match at Ashton Gate, to
watch Bristol City :-). As it happens this was the last time I saw
Ted. I now wish I had taken him up on the numerous offers to come
and stay with him in Bangkok. Hindsight I guess is a wonderful
thing, it is just a shame you are unable to turn back the clock.
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