It seems like the 2 rooms of the Cereus Network, UB Poker and Absolute Poker have become the victims of Black Friday; the shareholders of the Cereus rooms have sent out an email to their shareholders that they will likely be filing for bankruptcy due to the Black Friday’s events. The Norwegian Madeira Fjord (the company representing Cereus shareholders) has received an email from Absolute Poker‘s an UB.com‘s parent company, Blanca Gaming, in which they informed Madeira Fjord that they are currently unable to make any payments because of their debt obligations, and since they have no considerable income, this situation is bound to stay the same, therefore, they are to file bankruptcy. This will mean, in practice, that UB and Absolute Poker moves out of the online gambling market for good. Madeira Fjord filed the bankruptcy according to Mike Brunker, editor of MSNBC.
Blanca Gaming hasn’t replied to MSNBC‘s questions, therefore, it’s not at all clear what will happen to the players deposits and funds with the rooms. If the Cereus Network handled their users’ money as PokerStars, on dedicated and separate bank accounts the cashouts are not impossible. However, not many people believe it will happen. Players started to sell their stuck money for much less than it’s value.
Two affiliates who wanted their names remain undisclosed were quite pessimistic, they told MSNBC that they had around $100 with the rooms, but they don’t think they will see that money ever again.
The Cereus Network has seen an unprecedented drop of traffic since April 15, which day the poker community knows as the Black Friday. As it’s already known, the U.S. Department of Justice has seized the domains of 4 major poker sites, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and UB, and charged 11 of their operators with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses. The operators included the 2 founders of Absolute Poker, Scott Tom and Brent Beckley. Cereus was among the top 10 poker rooms/networks, and the 3rd biggest online poker provider in the United States. However, they have lost 3/4 of their players during the last 3 weeks, and have dropped to the 26th place.
Even though Cereus allowed U.S. players on its sites, they didn’t allow them to process real money transfers, so these players quickly moved to other rooms.
Quite a bit of irony in the slogan
Bankuptcy came as no shock to some, UB stated not long ago that they limit cashouts to $250 a week per player, which clearly wasn’t enough for the top grinders there. Moreover, the company fired 95% of their employees, 300 men from their Costa Rica office.
According to a mail posted to a popular poker forum, Blanca Gaming still hasn’t paid their employees, the company has $2,750,000 towards their workers. The mail was written to UB‘s CEO Paul Leggett by Olman Rimola, the head of the Costa Rican office. In the roughly worded mail, Rimola threatens Leggett by telling him that he is willing to tell everything to the FBI in exchange for protection, if he is not paid by May 3. As he informs Leggett, he has given evidence to 3 separate lawyers, who will disclose those evidences if Rimola is harmed in any way.
Absolute Poker was founded in 2002, and soon became a highly popular room conducting business in the United States after the UIGEA as well. In 2007, however, an employee of theirs known by the nickname POTRIPPER hacked the site, could see his opponents cards and vast quantitites of money. Due to the more and more common cheats and frauds, the room lost popularity and the unity with UB couldn’t really help it’s already bad situation. Cereus Network booked $33,7 million loss in 2009.
The shareholders already worked out a plan to sell the company this march, but the Black Friday crossed their intentions.
