Cereus still accepting US players, says tracking site
According to Pokerscout, the network has continued to accept US players for real-money play since its agreement with the DoJ.
Barely a week after coming to an agreement with the United States Department of Justice (DoJ), Absolute Poker is still accepting real-money play from US players, according to poker tracking site Pokerscout.
Last week’s deal purported to prevent US-based players from playing on the Cereus network (consisting of Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet), however yesterday’s weekly traffic report identified players from “obviously American cities such as Chicago, Bakersfield, Cincinnati, Colorado Springs and Minnetonka,” in real-money games.
And the site now has just over one month to ensure that these players are prevented from playing for real money on either Absolute Poker or Ultimate Bet.
According to the agreement, released by the DoJ last Wednesday but dated 4 May, “Absolute Poker agrees that for the duration of the agreement, it will not allow for, facilitate, or provide the ability for players located in the United States to engage in playing poker for “real money” or any other thing of value.”
Absolute Poker has been given 45 days from the issue of the agreement to ensure it has complied with the terms, with a DoJ-appointed monitor set to “issue a Compliance Report assessing whether Absolute Poker has complied with the terms of the agreement.”
The agreement goes on to state that “where a Compliance Report identifies a defect in Absolute Poker’s internal controls regarding its obligations under this Agreement, Absolute Poker shall have ten calendar days to cure this defect…”
Blanca Games, operator of the Cereus network, had earlier issued a release explaining it would be downsizing and looking to end its US operations, before backing up the statement with the termination of the contracts of its professional players.
The site entered into discussions with the authorities in late April, nearly a week after Pokerstars and Full Tilt reached agreements for the return of their dot.com domains. Under the terms of their own agreement last week, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet did not and will not have their own dot.com domains returned.