If you haved asked them for the money and they don't send it to you, you don't have constructive receipt.

Brent Beckley plead guilty today in Manhattan Court. For those of you n00bs who aren't staying up to date Beckley was one of the original founders of Absolute Poker and was named in the April 2011 indictment. I think this is very good news for players with money tied up on the site. For this to all of a sudden happen is a bit curious.

I do think that the DoJ wanted to make sure they got at least one person from AP to plead guilty in this case in order to strike some sort of deal with the company. That is how the legal system works the majority of the time. Someone has to take the fall, and then deals can be struck. I am hoping since we heard 2 months ago that a potential repayment system was close to being finalized, and now with the DoJ getting what they wanted in Beckley pleading guilty, that we can finally hear something about our player balances.

this is correct. since we live in the US, we have 0 way of receiving money. therefore its not included in gross income.


Here is another similar hypothetical:


you work for say, Sears, and you sell hardware on the floor. you are the best salesperson in the whole world. you are getting a 50,000 bonus for 2011.


So you do all the work in 2011, you receive a check, in your hands, on Dec 30, 2011

include in GI for 2011


you do all the work in 2011, you receive a check on January 5th, and had no access to the check before Jan 1, 2012

not included in GI for 2011, because you didn't have constructive receipt.

CR means you have unencumbered access to the funds. Obviously, people with money on cereus have no such access.

Thank you for the update in the midst of the accounting posts....

I hope this is good news and we finally get a statement/reply/something from AP/UB/DOJ/KGC/asldgh;asghk;ashkg;ahgr

I've no idea why you think this is good news for the players. Care to elaborate?

edit: Was this guy actively involved in the d2d operations of AP/UB?

how can it be bad news?

I think this has to be good news for players. The main thing being that the DoJ got what they've wanted all along, for someone on the inside of Absolute Poker to plead guilty. We see this all the time in criminal investigations. In order for the prosecutor to strike some sort of deal, someone on the inside of the defendant company (Brent Beckley for AP) must plead guilty to the charges, which he did today. I think it is curious that he plead guilty just a mere few weeks before the January deadline, don't you? I mean after nearly 8 months, he pleads guilty now?! If you don't find that curious, you're not thinking logically.

Also, call me crazy but there is a chance that the DoJ struck some sort of deal with AP that hinged on someone from AP taking the fall. I mean to me the following scenario makes sense and IS logical: One of the original founders of AP pleads guilty to all charges, and the DoJ helps AP pay back players with the frozen US bank accounts. Obviously this is just my intuition speaking. But I don't think those scenarios sound completely out there; on the contrary, they sound like something that could very well happen. Who knows exactly what to make of today's news. But one thing for sure is that its not bad news, b/c the DoJ got what they wanted and in my eyes that will make them more willing to strike some sort of deal with the company.

Please 1 time!!!

Never said it was bad news but maybe we're trying to read too much from the little information we have.

I hope you're right but I'll keep my emotions in check. I hear what you're saying. I can't say I agree with your logical views.

My whole point being that the way the FTP thing is playing out(agree there's a huge difference between the two situations), the DOJ does not have the player's best interests in their mind. If they do, they've definitely not stated it publicly.

can you explain further?

In the FTP case, the DOJ is getting paid 80 million by GBT to help them with the player's payments. I've been following the FTP threads and the general consensus is that payment process for the players is likely going to be a slow and long process(read 9 months-1year going by similar claims in other cases). Even though the DOJ has not made any public statements recently, we know there's a deal in place. There's no indication yet that we're getting paid in full.

On the other hand, we don't know if there's anybody interested in buying cereus. If there was an interested party, we would've heard some rumors at the very least. I'll try to find some posts that might be worth reading and post them here.

So your explanation for why you think that the DOJ doesn't have the players' best interest in mind is because some people on the internet said that they think that the DOJ is going to facilitate the repayment of players more slowly than you would like them to facilitate repayment?

He's a founder. In 2010 I actually thought he was not involved anymore. To my surprise on my CR trip I was actually introduced to him when I visited the IDS/TBT building. Fairly certain he was in charge of a department there. Good dude.

a trip to CR what was that all about, did ap invite you or did you just go?

Where does this Januari deadline come from? Is it just hear say or do we have something hard to back this up?

What happens when they ignore the deadline?

Gui Gui

Can you answer Roeky's question above my post, as I immediately wondered about this myself. After the traffic died on Cereus in May or whenever you were the reg who was sitting at most tables, though you never sat in.

Note: I don't doubt you or your honour. More why you were invited to CR, if you were, and who invited you.

Oops should have made it more clear that this was in 2010. I became friends with the guy in charge of the VIP department during Aruba trips. He offered me to come down multiple times (for free) to CR and I finally went in december. Lots of action during that month.

No, I meant the lack of any public statements doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Has the DOJ publicly commented about what will happen to player's funds? Even when they accused FTP of being a ponzi scheme, there was never a discussion about what will happen to US player's money.

I know you guys at SP feel like everyone will get paid in full and within a short period of time but nobody knows for sure. The only way I would feel good is if the DOJ came out tomorrow and said "We're in the final stages of approving a sale of the FTP assets, the players will have to claim for their account balance but we expect this to be a smooth process" or something along those lines.

BTW, there's so many rumors about FTP and S:P has been a great asset for everyone looking for information. Along the same lines, don't you have any inside information about what is going with AP/UB?

I was getting payouts as late as BF from cereus fwiw

but anything you won from BF to now, you do not have access to, so it's not yours.


I'd be interested to see what kind of IRS ruling would be written about this. It's obvious a professional player would have won some amount of money in 3 months time, but if they never requested a payout in 2011 before BF, and then tried post BF and were denied, can they be taxed on money won preBF?

no clue

Yes. The money that you make in 2011 is taxable income regardless of the time or if it were to be cashed out. Just nobody is crazy enough to still report it. The IRS recognizes gambling sessions and ignores the cash-out element of it. For example, if u made 100k in 2009, and didn't cash out at all until 2010, you're still supposed to report all of your 100k earnings in 2009.

Nonetheless, this thread should go back to optimists vs pessimists... we're getting off topic with tax talk.

I don't know anything about this, I was just commenting on zobags saying that they weren't processing cashouts near the end of 2010. I was getting cashouts processed right up until BF.

Not entirely true as you get a deduction for the losses suffered as a result of BF.

But you can't take a loss because there is no rsolution. Our money isn't worthless yet. If the irs views your money on ub-ap as an investment, you can only claim 3000 per year as a loss.