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Posts Tagged ‘absolute poker’
Thursday, May 26th, 2011
After repeatedly saying they would be disallowing US players from playing at UB Poker and Absolute Poker, the Cereus Poker Network simply kept allowing US players at their tables, until finally they barred US players last week. While traffic dipped considerably, even with US players still populating their tables the network’s traffic numbers were down 83% according to PokerScout.com.
However, that was just the beginning of the Cereus Poker Network’s woes, considering that after finally barring US players we now have a good understanding why Cereus Poker stalled for so long, as the network has now lost 96% of its traffic since Black Friday according to the latest online poker traffic report from pokerscout.com.
It seems a foregone conclusion that the Cereus Poker Network is finished in the online poker world, but hopefully players will be able to get their money off the site before the end comes –although at this point this would appear to be nothing more than wishful thinking.
The only other major movement this past week was the Merge Gaming Network passing PokerStars.fr, and now sitting in the #8 spot in terms of overall traffic –although #7 and #6 are both Italian sites which are hard to quantify since they do not allow cash game players, just tournament players. So in my mind the merge Gaming Network is actually the #6 ranked online poker room/network.
Tags: absolute poker, Black Friday, Cash Game, Foregone Conclusion, Fr, Game Players, Gaming Network, Good Understanding, Italian Sites, Network Traffic, online poker, Online Traffic, Playing Poker, Poker Network, Poker Room Network, Poker World, Traffic Numbers, Traffic Report, Wishful Thinking, Woes
Posted in Online Poker, Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Friday, May 20th, 2011
Another weekly report by pokerscout.com, and basically the same news for the Cereus Poker Network, which continues to be the hardest hit online poker site(s) following the US Department of Justice’s crackdown on online poker on April 15, 2011: Forever to be known as Black Friday in the poker world.
While most online poker sites and networks saw a minimal decrease in their traffic numbers –which pokerscout.com chalks up to a seasonal change, as overall online poker traffic dipped 4% this past week—the Cereus Poker Network saw their already plunging traffic numbers fall a further 29% this past week, putting their overall traffic loss at 83% since Black Friday.
Even more troubling for online poker players hoping the Cereus Poker Network survives –at least long enough for them to withdraw their funds from the site—is the fact that according to the pokerscout.com report the Cereus Poker Network is evidently still accepting US players! They initially stated they had barred US player in the week following Black Friday –which proved to be false—and once again stated they are no longer accepting US players after they reached an agreement with the DOJ about a week ago –again proving to not be the case.
If it’s true that the Cereus Poker Network is still allowing US players on their sites, UB Poker and Absolute Poker, this does not bode well for players with large amounts of money sitting in their UB and AP accounts. After all, if they are willing to lie to the US Attorney Office and the Department of Justice, it seems feasible that they are willing to lie to their customers.
Tags: absolute poker, Attorney Office, Black Friday, Crackdown, Customer Base, Department Of Justice, Doj, Money, Online Poker Sites, Online Traffic, Poker Network, Poker Players, Poker World, Seasonal Change, Traffic Numbers, True Poker, Us Department Of Justice
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
After a number of press releases addressing everything from raided offices in Costa Rica, Bankruptcy filings, laying-off 95% off their workers, the dismissal of their entire roster of sponsored pros, and even mafia style E-Mail exchanges where people are threatening to go to the authorities there was actually a positive development coming out of Absolute Poker on Wednesday as the site announced it had reached an agreement with US Department of Justice that would allow them to start facilitating withdrawals to US players.
Before any UB Poker and Absolute Poker players start jumping for joy it should be noted the site stated they “Unfortunately, the Company still faces several legal issues which must be navigated before funds can be paid out to US players… Player funds, therefore, will not become immediately available for withdrawal as a result of today’s agreement with the DOJ.”
Another interesting statement from the press release is that the DOJ is not returning the domain names as they did for Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars.
Here is a look at the entire press release issued by Absolute Poker:
Absolute Poker has reached an agreement with the United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York (“SDNY”). Under the agreement, the US Attorney’s Office has agreed to provide all necessary assurances that third parties may work with Absolute Poker to facilitate the return of funds, currently held by third party processors, to players located in the US. This provision is an important step to returning US player funds.
The Company has also notified the SDNY that it has closed its US-facing operations, and it has agreed to the cessation of real money poker play in the US. As such, Absolute Poker has not requested the return of its worldwide domain names, www.AbsolutePoker.com, www.UltimateBet.com and www.UB.com, and today’s agreement does not provide for their return. The agreement also provides for the appointment of Monitor, approved by the US Attorney’s Office, to assess the Company’s compliance with the terms of the agreement.
Absolute Poker’s top priority has always been, and remains, the refund of account balances to its U.S. players. Unfortunately, the Company still faces several legal issues which must be navigated before funds can be paid out to US players. The Company’s US attorneys, Blank Rome LLP, continue to work diligently to resolve these issues, which is a necessary further step to facilitate the return of funds to players. Player funds, therefore, will not become immediately available for withdrawal as a result of today’s agreement with the DOJ.
A Company spokesperson said: “Today’s signing of the agreement with the DOJ is an important step towards the safe and efficient return of funds to our US players. We can now move as expeditiously as possible to collect player monies from third party processors as a prelude to establishing proper mechanisms for the return of funds to our US players. As previously announced, we have already taken specific actions to exit the US market by closing our US-facing operations. Blank Rome LLP will continue to engage in discussions with the SDNY in order to complete the necessary agreements for the final transfer of frozen fund balances to our US players. This remains our highest priority. We will continue to update our players and the poker community, as we move forward to resolve outstanding issues.”
Tags: absolute poker, Bankruptcy Filings, Cessation, E Mail, Entire Press, Full Tilt Poker, Mafia Style, Mail Exchanges, Necessary Assurances, Party Processors, Poker Players, PokerStars, Real Money Poker, Sdny, Southern District Of New York, Ultimatebet, United States Attorney, Us Department Of Justice, Withdrawals, Worldwide Domain Names
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Friday, May 6th, 2011
The faith of the poker community in the Cereus Poker Network to repay their players seems to have finally hit a tipping point with this week’s rumors of pending bankruptcy for one of the shareholder companies of Blanca Gaming –a rumor Blanca Gaming is somewhat denying. In a random thread on 2+2 in which Isaac Haxton as well as a number of other high-stakes poker players from Absolute Poker and UB Poker posted that they are willing to sell the money they have on either Cereus Poker Network site for mere pennies on the dollar.
Haxton, who came to the attention of the poker world with his runner-up finish at the 2007 PCA, and gained even more notoriety later after having some $800,000 frozen in Neteller when the payment processor was seized by the US government for over a year, must be having a feeling of déjà vu. Haxton wrote on 2+2:
“I’ll sell AP/UB for 20 cents on the dollar. I have 300k. US account so I can’t transfer, PM me to discuss options for settling. fml,”
Other players who were looking to sell their AP/UB Poker funds at extreme discounts included Dani “Ansky” Stern and Andrew “BalugaWhale” Seidman. It seems the going rate at the moment is anywhere from $.20-$.35 on the dollar, with some people throwing out lowball offers of around $.15.
Tags: absolute poker, Ansky, Bankruptcy, Extreme Discounts, Faith, High Stakes Poker, Neteller, Notoriety, Payment Processor, Pca, Pennies On The Dollar, Poker Network, Poker Players, Poker World, Seidman, Shareholder, Stern, Tipping Point, ub, Us Government
Posted in Poker News | No Comments »
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
According to an E-Mail published at HoldemPokerChat.com, Madeira Fjord, which represents the stockholders for the Cereus Poker Network’s parent company Blanca Games, is preparing to file for bankruptcy. The Cereus Poker Network is of course the parent company of Absolute Poker and UB Poker –so we have a lot of parent companies here.
The E-Mail informs shareholders:
Most importantly, Blanca Gaming has provided notice to our subsidiary Avoine that it is currently unable to make any payments toward its debt obligations. Additionally, Blanca has further advised that there will be no future payments.
Over the past 60 days, the Company has accumulated current debts in excess of $250,000 which are increasing at $100,000+ per month. These obligations are primarily legal and professional fees in Norway.
With no cash on hand and no prospects for any cash flow for the foreseeable future, the Board of Directors is required by Norwegian law to enter the bankruptcy process.
In a related story on MSNBC.com, contributor Mike Brunker also confirmed that the troubled poker network has laid-off approximately 95% of its 300 person workforce in Costa Rica where the poker sites are located. Brunker also reported that the site has not been issuing withdrawals to non-US poker players, which would seem to have been merely a stalling tactic to bring in as much revenue as possible before filing for bankruptcy.
With this news it seems unlikely that the Cereus Poker Network’s players will ever be reimbursed the funds from their accounts, whether they live in the US or abroad.
Tags: absolute poker, Bankruptcy Process, Debt Obligations, E Mail, File Bankruptcy, Filing Bankruptcy, Filing For Bankruptcy, Fjord, Foreseeable Future, Madeira, Msnbc, Norwegian Law, Parent Company, Person Workforce, Poker Network, Poker Players, Poker Sites, Professional Fees, Stockholders, Withdrawals
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Wednesday, April 27th, 2011
In the wake of Black Friday there was a huge exodus from a number of online poker rooms, even ones unaffected by the FBI and DOJ seizures and indictments. Now, nearly two weeks later we are starting to see traffic level-off at most of the online poker sites, and there is definitely some cause for concern from UB Poker and Absolute Poker players.
UB and AP Poker, which make up the Cereus Poker Network, have definitely been the hardest hit by the US crackdown. According to the online poker tracking site www.pokerscout.com, the Cereus Network has shed nearly 2/3 of their player base since April 15th. Compare this to PokerStars, which lost about 28% of their total traffic, and Full Tilt Poker, which initially saw a 50% drop before rebounding during the FTOPS and ending up down about 35% overall.
The Cereus Poker Network has dropped from a Top 10 poker room/network all the way down to #22 on pokerscout.com’s list. This is despite the sites’ claims that they are no longer accepting US players, but many players are saying they are having no trouble at all logging into the site and playing online poker for real-money.
This could spell the end for the oft-troubled poker network which has seen both of their poker rooms involved in Super-User cheating scandals, and has been the poster-child for all that is wrong in the online poker industry –from secrecy to cover-ups, to inferior encryption.
Tags: absolute poker, Black Friday, Doj, Exodus, Full Tilt Poker, Indictments, Online Poker Rooms, Online Poker Sites, Poker Network, Poker Players, Poker Room Network, PokerStars, Poster Child, Real Money, Scandals, Secrecy, Seizures, Traffic Level, Ups, Us Crackdown
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
After nearly a week of waiting, players on the Cereus Poker Network –Absolute Poker and UB Poker—finally got their first statement from the site regarding the seizure of their domain name by the FBI and DOJ, as well as the indictments handed down to key players in the Absolute Poker organization.
While not as conciliatory as the Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars statements, Absolute Poker’s statement also makes player deposits the top priority, and it appears a channel has been opened in dialogues with the US Attorney Office for the Southern District of New York:
“Absolute Poker has retained Blank Rome LLP as United States counsel to provide legal advice in relation to civil and criminal matters filed in federal court in Manhattan and made public on April 15, 2011. Absolute Poker is aware that on April 19, 2011, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York entered into separate agreements with FullTilt Poker and PokerStars. These agreements concern the use of the respective www.fulltiltpoker.com and www.pokerstars.com domain names. The US Attorney, in a press release dated April 20, 2011, stated that the government is willing to enter the same agreement with Absolute Poker and UB.
“At this time, Absolute Poker’s top priority is, and must be, the refund of balances to its and UB’s US players. However, given the far-reaching consequences of the US Attorney’s actions for Absolute Poker and for the entire poker community, Absolute Poker believes that the responsible course of action is to review with its attorneys the relevant court filings before taking any action.”
“Absolute Poker believes that the US Attorney shares the view that refunds to US players are an immediate and pressing concern, and Absolute Poker wishes to make clear that it wants to work cooperatively with the US Attorney to safely and efficiently return its players’ funds. To that end, Absolute Poker’s counsel has initiated communications with the US Attorney’s office and plans to continue proactively advancing those discussions.”
“Further information and timely updates will be provided to Absolute Poker/UB’s players as we move forward.”
Tags: absolute poker, Attorney Office, Blank Rome Llp, Consequences, Court Filings, Criminal Matters, Dialogues, Doj, Domain Names, Fbi, Full Tilt Poker, Indictments, Legal Advice, Manhattan, Poker Network, PokerStars, Rome, Seizure, Southern District Of New York, Top Priority
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
In the first bit of good news since the ominous Black Friday occurred last week, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars have come to an agreement with the United States Attorney Office for the Southern District of New York that will see the sites regain their .com domain names in exchange for agreeing to leave the US market entirely. Player deposits were emphasized in a statement by US Attorney Preet Bharara and Full Tilt Poker, and both parties emphasized their feelings that players should, and will, be returned their deposits.
In the press release issued on the justice.gov website, Preet Bhararar stated: “No individual player accounts were ever frozen or restrained, and each implicated poker company has at all times been free to reimburse any player’s deposited funds. In fact, this Office expects the companies to return the money that U.S. players entrusted to them…”
Full Tilt Poker reiterated these comments saying this is an important “first step towards returning funds to US players,”, but went on to explain why players money is currently stuck in limbo: “unfortunately, there remain significant practical and legal impediments to returning funds to players in the immediate future. As a result of the recent enforcement action, there exists no authorized U.S. payment channel through which to make refunds; Full Tilt Poker has no accounting of the millions of dollars of player funds that were seized by the government; and the government has not agreed to permit any of the seized player funds to be returned to the players.”
While both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker seem to have struck the same deal with the US Attorney Office, Absolute Poker was mentioned as having the same opportunity, but not yet coming to terms with the DOJ.
Tags: absolute poker, Accounting, Attorney Office, Black Friday, Doj, Domain Names, Feelings, Full Tilt Poker, Immediate Future, Legal Impediments, Limbo, Money, PokerStars, Press Release, Southern District Of New York, United States Attorney
Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
It’s now official; every poker site that was indicted this past Friday has now closed its doors to US online poker players. The last holdout was the Cereus Poker Network of Absolute Poker and UB Poker, who at first took a hard-line approach over the weekend to the government seizure of the sites’ .com domain names and accompanying indictments and civil lawsuit. Cereus initially told their customers they would continue to accept US players –although those players would be unable to cash-out for the time being—but did an about face on Monday and officially closed their doors to US poker players.
PokerStars was the first site to pull the plug on its US operations, informing its customers of their decision Friday night. While Full Tilt Poker has banned US players early Saturday morning, any player who has stayed logged in to the poker client, and not downloaded the new software update, can supposedly still play at the site.
This leaves a small number of smaller poker sites and networks still serving the US market, but it remains to be seen if these sites will be able to deal with what is likely even going to be harsher depositing and withdrawal procedures than we have seen over the past few years –since UIGEA became official last year player withdrawals have been hit or miss as far as bounced checks and long waits to receive funds.
Tags: absolute poker, Bounced Checks, Civil Lawsuit, Domain Names, Doors, Friday Night, Full Tilt Poker, Government Seizure, Holdout, Indictments, New Software, online poker, Player Withdrawals, Poker Client, Poker Network, Poker Players, Poker Sites, Saturday Morning, Software Update, Withdrawal Procedures
Posted in Online Poker, Poker Industry News | No Comments »
Monday, April 18th, 2011
After the seizure of the PokerStars.com domain name the world’s largest online poker room has decided to make the move to the non-US hosted PokerStars.eu domain in an effort to keep their games up and running for online poker players from around the world.
So, while visitors to the PokerStars.com website are being greeted with the gaudy FBI/DOJ warning, the PokerStars.eu website looks precisely the same as the old .com website; down to Team PokerStars Pro USA members still being listed on the site.
In a statement issued by the site, PokerStars explained the move the .eu website, “The PokerStars website has been moved to www.pokerstars.eu, and the PokerStars Support email address is now support@pokerstars.eu. PokerStars apologizes to all players for any inconvenience caused by this disruption.” He cautioned, however, “Please be aware that PokerStars Support is currently experiencing a very high volume of emails, so response times are delayed. Player emails will be answered as quickly as possible.”
Full Tilt Poker has also moved to its .eu domain, leaving the Full TiltPoker.com website also sporting that less than lovely FBI and DOJ message. Additionally Absolute Poker and UB Poker have also switched to their .eu addresses.
Only time will tell on how this whole situation will play out, and more details are expected to be forthcoming over the next week.
Tags: absolute poker, Addresses, Disruption, Doj, Domain Name, Email Address, Fbi, Full Tilt Poker, Full Tiltpoker, Games, High Volume, Inconvenience, online poker, Poker Players, Poker Room, PokerStars, Response Times, Seizure, ub, Usa Members
Posted in Online Poker, Poker Industry News | No Comments »
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