Surprising Disclosures From Full Tilt And CEREUS Network

With the live tournament season currently hitting its exciting climax, it’s almost possible to forget the shocking setback American poker sustained on April 15. Hardly more than a month after Black Friday, the poker headlines about the U.S. Department of Justice’s site seizures have given way to tournament coverage and WSOP predictions. This week, though, online poker fans that are still feeling the aftermath from the crackdown on American players got a mixed bag of updates from two of the affected sites.

PokerStars has already reportedly processed millions of dollars in federally mandated American funds withdrawals. As a result, former members of the other three remaining sites – Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and UB.com – have raised a ruckus as their own funds remain in limbo despite all three of the aforementioned entities reaching their own withdrawal agreements. On Friday, Full Tilt addressed some of their U.S. members’ growing concerns.

In an effort to stem the rising tide of withdrawal-related complaints, Full Tilt Poker recently instituted a generous payout program which converted all American players’ unused tournament dollars and tickets to cash on a dollar to dollar ratio. Likewise, ring game tickets were also refunded based on their original or pro-rated cash values. In a more surprising move, the site has promised to maintain American players’ existing Black Card and Iron Man statuses, should they be able to play real money games again in the near future. It’s either a rare show of optimism or stingy reluctance to put a dollar value on a promotion that is still ongoing for their other real money members.

Unfortunately, the most popular question American players are aiming at Full Tilt Poker – When will I get my money back – remains unanswered. On their new U.S. FAQ page, Full Tilt gives an ambiguous answer that cites the site’s many legal troubles but fails to give a specific date or even approximate window of time for the completion of withdrawals.

In even more shocking news, Absolute Poker – another Black Friday afflicted site that has thus far failed to refund any American balances – was recently accused of still catering to U.S. members. When PokerScout updated its site usage statistics early this week, it revealed that some U.S. members are still active in the real money sections of both Absolute Poker and its CEREUS partner site UB.com. PokerScout reportedly identified account activity from locations all over the United States including Chicago, Cincinnati, Colorado Springs and more than one location in California.

Apparently the breach in the CEREUS Network’s recent agreement to ban cash action for American members was due to a technical oversight that allowed players with the poker rooms’ most recent software packages to continue using their pre-existing account balances to play at both ring games and tournaments. Thus far there has been no news on whether or not the problem has been resolved, and if the violation of the sites’ agreement will further delay American withdrawals.

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