On Thursday, the CEREUS Network site Absolute Poker broke its silence following the indictments of Scott Tom and Brent Beckley in the United States one week ago. Absolute Poker has enlisted the aid of Blank Rome LLP and is currently in discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice. When it will make its next move remains to be seen.
On Wednesday, the Department of Justice issued a press release outlining an agreement with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. The accord gave both sites their seized dot-com domain names back in order to process player refunds. In exchange, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker agreed to stop taking U.S. players and cut off U.S. deposits.
However, no deal with Absolute Poker was struck, leaving many in the industry to wonder what the CEREUS Network site’s next move would be.
On Thursday, we got our answer. Absolute Poker officials explained why the room had seemingly been slow to respond: “At this time, Absolute Poker’s top priority is, and must be, the refund of balances to its and UB’s U.S. players. However, given the far-reaching consequences of the U.S. 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.”
Therefore, the pace of its attorneys may be partially to blame, although Absolute Poker merely seems to be weighing all of its options thoroughly.
The site then revealed that it has entered discussions with the U.S. Government: “Absolute Poker believes that the U.S. Attorney shares the view that refunds to U.S. players are an immediate and pressing concern, and Absolute Poker wishes to make clear that it wants to work cooperatively with the U.S. Attorney to safely and efficiently return its players’ funds. To that end, Absolute Poker’s counsel has initiated communications with the U.S. Attorney’s office and plans to continue proactively advancing those discussions.”
Should Absolute Poker reach a settlement with the Department of Justice, the process of cashing players out might be problematic. According to a press release sent by Full Tilt earlier this week, “there exists no authorized U.S. payment channel through which to make refunds.” It also noted, “The government has not agreed to permit any of the seized player funds to be returned to the players.”
A statement from PokerStars was slightly more optimistic: “Cashouts for U.S. residents are expected to be available within several weeks.” As it currently stands, funneling money from a site like PokerStars to U.S. residents could be deemed illegal under the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Therefore, each site must work hand in hand with the Department of Justice in order to create a legal payment channel.
Commenting on the situation in recent days were several pros from UB.com, including Adam “Roothlus” Levy. He chirped, “Happy I planned Coachella/Chi-town mini-vaycay before all this ish went down.” Then, it sounded as if Levy was planning a retirement speech: “As a serious aside (and I’ve always said it), I’ve met some of the most awesome, inspirational people through my career in online poker.”
Also weighing in was Joe Sebok, who told his million followers, “I’m confident we will find a way to take care of players tho. Just sitting tight. Difficult.”
UB.com pro and Poker Road Radio personality Bryan Devonshire relayed that he has five-figures locked up in his home site: “I have been informed that money was not seized and is secure. I have over $20K on there and am not worried about it.”
Keep it tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest on the online poker indictments.