You, me and anyone here do not know that. The money in question could be anything when it comes to amounts or its purposes.

It is obvious though that Cereus was run badly and, quite likely, dishonestly (talking about recent past here, not superuser scandals).

Nevertheless the primary reason for the current debacle is the course the US Government has chosen to follow over the last few years. Whatever the reasons for that may be - illiberal, morally conservative attitudes of those in power, protectionism, lobbying by the B&M corporations - the fundamental fault lies with the US political elite.

As the guy above me said, they aren't a bank. Also, they have told non-Americans that they will pay them a very generous $500 a week (recently doubled), and as far as I can tell, they are struggling to meet their own bar, which has been set impressively low.

No, the amount of liquid funds they are meant to hold is set by their local regulator. I think it is 8% here.

you are a clown. you are telling me that cereus SHOULD have sum of player deposits in an account, despite regulations where cereus is based not mandating it, but when i ask you whether banks should hold all deposits, you respond "no they shouldn't because the local regulations say they only need 8% on hand"

...............

unless, antigua does in fact mandate that they should have an account with the sum of player deposits. if that is the case, than i retract my statements. but from my own research, that doesn't appear to be the case.

It's not a ponzi scheme by the true definition of a ponzi scheme but if you look at what causes a ponzi scheme to fail you'll see a lot of similarities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
1. AP/UB owners are nowhere to be found
2. There are no deposits(new investments) going into AP/UB
3. DoJ intervening caused a run on the bank.

Pretty sure even without the DoJ UB/AP would've eventually failed. Their financials were horrible(they lost A LOT of money last year) and it's pretty clear that early investors in the company weren't being paid for a long time.

Doesn't their "regulator" insist on liquid funds to cover player balances, you bell end?

In case you aren't aware, Cereus is not a bank.

'should' and 'regulations' are different things.

The guy was responding to your questions about banks, not about cereus.

if regulations don't mandate that you need the sum of player deposits in a bank account you would be foolish to keep one.

Why? do you ask?

if you were to look at how much is withdrawn per month against total player deposits, it would probably be <5%. There is really no need to tie up an enormous amount of cash. Now, obviously when the DOJ shuts you down with no warning and slaps a 500M fine on you, and everyone withdraws at once... yes. you have financial problems. and then everyone says "ZOMG u should have had dedicated player accounts".

A quick injection on the players funds. this is playing devils advocate, I think UB/AP are running as much as the next man.

The licencing agreement that UB/AP has states that players funds much not be allowed to be used for anything but player bets etc. These funds should be on hand at all times, but are allowed to be held in business bank accounts, with other business funds, as long as they are accounted for.

If any of UB/AP's US business accounts were being used to hold players funds, and have been seized by the DOJ, they would need to open up their books to the DOJ to prove it. Who wants to bet that they are opening their books to the DOJ?

(by the way, it seems that the same thing has happened to Full Tilt, and that's why they haven't paid yet, but I'm pretty sure they're gonna pay, it's just part of their accounting issues.)

Yes, Kahnawake Gaming Commission does insist on that for licensees. Of course KGC has no teeth whatsoever as a licensing authority.

TMK their regulator doesn't. Which is why when the news broke everyone was like "stars and FTP should be fine b/c they have dedicated player accounts, and cereus won't because they are based in antigua which doesn't require" or w/e.

I've also looked at the antigua gaming license site and have seen no information regarding total sum of player accounts.

I think the key for players is that both the publicly stated KGC policy for issuing liscences and the company line through support emails was that player funds were kept in firewalled accounts. If Blanca didn't do this I blame Blanca/KGC first and foremost for the loss of my funds, followed distantly by myself and the DOJ.

Antigua is not their gaming licensing authority - a non-entity of Kahnawake is.

if it is true the regulator mandates that they have dedicated player accounts, then i'll back off

Antigua does require player funds are held in trust, and not used for anything else. Whether they do anything about it is another matter of course.

I have spent far too long reading all 3 of the licences, especially covering player deposits, and I only did it 'cos I was interested. Am i sick?

The "regulator" requires that players' money must be available at all times as liquid funds. It does not mandate separate bank accounts for that (i.e. Isle of Man/Stars set-up of accounts held in trust for the players is not required).

Kahnawake though is not recognised as a legitimate licensing authority by the UK (and probably others) and I'm sure Cereus could do whatever they wanted and KGC wouldn't have bothered.

Well, yes, actually it is a local issue ....

When IDS, the AP/UB operating entity, laid off the Costa Rica workforce, it went to tap a severance fund account to pay severance. Apparently, it was discovered that the fund had already been drained, reportedly by the local manager, who had unsuccessfully run for Mayor of Escazu.

(My "obscure poker artifacts" collection would have been complete had I accepted a T shirt from his campaign staff when it was offered on the street a while back .... Damn.)

To those bemoaning the US Gov

I agree the US Gov has a lol attitude to gambling and are stretching their influence too far here but you cannot blame them for cereus's collapse.

It's already been widely reported tha Cereus has been failing to make affiliate payments for several months now. They clearly had cashflow issues and this was going to happen long run earlier. Certainly this made it all blow up and gives them an easy excuse but they were going down anyway.

Agree 100% I hope players here specifically in the US are actively going after the DOJ for information.......How much have they taken?
What are there terms for negotiating?
What are there plans for the money?
Whats there stance on world trade organisations court ruling that UIEGA breaches fair trade?

And finally if Harrahs wanted to get into the flat pack furniture business would they shut down US business, fine and discredit IKEA???

Seriously there should be someway to find out how much money they had in seized bank accounts??

I think you are confusing the two here - Blanca Games Inc. is incorporated in Antigua and Barbuda. Their gaming license however is issued by Kahnawake Gaming Commission - a non-entity (basically) in Canada.

From absolutepoker.net:

Yes, as things were, Cereus would have run into trouble eventually even without Black Friday. However my argument is that had it not been for UIGEA and everything that followed, it is likely that UB/AP operations would have stayed honest from the start as investors would have been able to exercise proper control. Of course we'll never know now.

did anybody from the non us players get their 250$ cashout lately? i tried to cashout 2 weeks ago and still got nothing...

The existence of the FDIC means that it does not concern me if my local bank engages in fractional reserve banking.

I am sorry mate but L O L

got my first cah out last Saturday, requested 22/04.