I don’t know about you, but I’m a fan of online slots, especially those with a dynamic, exciting theme. I also like superheroes and all of their tie-ins, including movies, video games, toys and more. Of course, that also includes online slots.

For that reason, I am a big fan of Cryptologic’s Marvel slots series. The partnership between Crypologic and Marvel has been ongoing since 2005 and the pair has released 17 online slots with the Marvel license, including some of my favorite comic book characters, like Spider-Man and the X-Men.

It seems that the relationship between Cryptologic and Marvel is far from perfect, though. Last week, Crypologic released a press release notifying everyone of their upcoming arbitration hearings with Marvel.

According to Cryptologic, their wholly owned subsidiary WagerLogic has commenced arbitration hearings against Marvel due to “material breaches of certain provisions of [Marvel’s] agreement with WagerLogic.” The press release did not explain what provisions were violated nor what they are seeking in the arbitration hearing. They did state that they had tried to resolve the matter internally and quietly without turning to arbitration, with no success.

No one knows what went wrong in this partnership, but there is no shortage of speculation. Things seemed to be going smoothly until 2009. Cryptologic has not released a Marvel slot since December of 2008. In February of 2009ar, Cryptologic signed a contract with DC Comics – the top rival of Marvel – and has released online slots based on characters from their comics. Then in March of 2009, Marvel signed a deal with Playtech – one of Cryptologic’s top competitors – and has released five online slots based on Marvel characters.

If that seemed like payback for Cryptologic’s deal with DC, though, those rumors were put to rest when Cryptologic and Marvel signed a contract extension in June of 2009 that would keep their contract valid through 2013.

So what is going on here? No one, outside of the parties involved, seems to know. Cryptologic’s press release seemed intended not to be informative, but to fulfill a legal requirement to shareholders. Since they are a publicly traded company, they are required to keep the public informed on business-related issues that could impact their stock. Only time will tell what is going on here and how the contract was supposedly breached.

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