It was in 2006 when Playtech, an online gambling software developing superstar hired a guy from Israel, Boaz Laufer (pictured). He came to work in Estonia, where Playtech has its development units in Tallinn and Tartu.

But now, four years later, there’s a depressing dispute between Laufer and Playtech. Martin Leiger from Playtech Estonia’s public relations refuses to comment what is it about, referring that there’s a trial ongoing in Estonian court. One thing, however, is certain: the issue will not improve Playtech’s reputation.  

Boaz argues that he was fired from Playtech unfairly, due to one of his tasks – he was working on a Playtech’s Intranet project, but it failed and according to Laufer, Playtech managers thought he was to blame for this. But he objects having done anything wrong.  

But it turns out that Laufer hasn’t been exactly a blue-eyed boy himself. A well-known Estonian white hat hacker Tõnu Samuel „discovered“ the Israeli few weeks ago. Samuel has dedicated a blogpost to him, writing that the former Playtech employee has spread spam shamelessly over the web in different weblog commentariums, including Samuel’s.

Laufer has established many websites related to online gambling – for example tomatocasino.com (printscreen below), smsslot.com and others – and is desperatrely looking for ways to promote these. „It’s a monkey-business, he earns 100 dollars from here, 100 from there…“ Samuel quesses.

Boaz’s LinkedIn profile confirms his connections with the related gambling websites. Question is whether his online gambling activities have anything to do with the dispute with Playtech and if he ran his own business already when working for the company?

Laufer has responded to Samuel’s accusations furiously. He claims that he owns many internet sites, but his internet marketing company Human Sapiens has nothing to do with spamming. “I build traffic into my sites using legitimate marketing ways,” he wrote in a comment to Samuel’s post. Samuel says that Laufer has even considered suing him for slander, but hasn’t taken any actions yet and will probably reconsider, “like the spammers usually do!”

Boaz confirmed me over a phonecall that he is not a spammer and that he considers moving its business to Latvia, where people are assumingly friendlier. But I guess the question „who do you believe?“ would sound a bit awkward here.