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In the Department of Justice's press release regarding the PokerStars deal, the following paragraph was included: "In a related matter, the U.S. Attorney’s office also filed a motion requesting that the Court enter a settlement agreement reached with Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet that requires the company to forfeit all of its assets (the “Absolute Assets”) in order to fully resolve this action. The motion also requests that the Government be permitted to liquidate the Absolute Assets, with the net proceeds of that sale to be held pending the resolution of claims filed by other parties who have asserted an ownership interest in the Absolute Assets."




To summarize the above, the DOJ has asked a US Judge to grant them permission to take control of assets being forfeited by Absolute Poker ("AP") and to sell them.

However, due to several reasons the players of Absolute Poker / Ultimate Bet cannot feel same optimism as Full Tilt users. First of all, except the U.S., there are other parties who have filed lawsuits against AP. The most significant one is the government of Norway, which continues to pursue a $30m tax lien (180 million Norwegian kroner) levied against AP parent company Madeira Fjord. Secondly, other Absolute Poker assets have significantly less value than similar components at Full Tilt, giving them far less worth in the seizure-and-sale process hinted at by the DOJ. And thirdly, there are strong indications that the majority of Absolute Poker’s revenue was already laundered into offshore holdings, there was then little real incentive for AP’s core owners to conduct sincere negotiations with the US.

Summarizing all mentioned above, it may be said that this week’s news was great for stranded Full Tilt players. For Absolute Poker customers, however, nothing has changed at all.