CEREUS joins Absolute Poker and UltimateBet

They are CEREUS. Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, two online gaming sites that have each been embroiled in significant scandals that rocked the online poker community over the past year, will join together on a new poker platform-the CEREUS network.

I could not have made this one up. The announcement was made by the management of both companies on July 24, 2008. CEREUS will integrate the customers and features of both poker sites to make one large network. Upon completing the merger, they claim CEREUS will be the third largest online poker network, presumably in the league of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. The companies note that they've been jointly developing CEREUS for more than a year, and though UB and AP will continue to maintain separate names and brand qualities, all players will be members of the same network that will offer more tournaments, features, and promotions.

Chief Operations Officer of AP and UB Paul Leggett said in his press release, "This is a huge landmark for our company and online poker. I'm confident that Absolute Poker and UltimateBet customers will be thrilled by the new platform and we look forward to welcoming many new players from around the world. CEREUS not only delivers the best online poker experience; it enables our company to improve our operations and deliver significantly better value and service to our customers."

UB and AP have both been the sources of superuser scandals that cheated online poker players out of millions of dollars, though the companies claim to have refunded all of those monies back to the victims of the scams. According to the companies themselves and the Kahnawake Gaming Commission that issues their gaming licenses, Tokwiro Enterprises bought both companies after the superuser accounts had been established and used to cheat players, and the new owners were made aware of the improprieties post-sale. AP claims to have resolved all issues that led to its scandal, while UB is currently attempting to put together the pieces of its software and former management problems in order to provide some sort of resolution to its public relations nightmare.

Despite the fact that both scandals were widely reported in the poker media-with the exception of some magazines that did not want to risk their advertising dollars-enough players continue to play on Absolute Poker and UltimateBet to allow the sites to remain powerful forces in the online poker business. Quite possibly, the fact that the sites are both under new management and seem to have addressed the scandals in one way or another has allowed players to feel that their money is safe in those accounts.

Since the new ownership of AP and UB has not exactly been successful in efforts to counter the bad publicity of the scandals with good public relations, this may be their way of showing stamina and an ability to overcome the negative cloud that still lingers over both companies in the views of many poker players. Tokwiro and the new management members put in place at AP and UB have claimed from the beginning that the scandals were the result of neglect by previous regimes, and with new software upgrades and security in place, Leggett and others believe that this is the best time and method to integrate the sites.

Regardless of motive, the formation of CEREUS may have been a premature one, as the UltimateBet scandal still rages on and continues to get more convoluted as names of previous owners like Russ Hamilton are thrown into the fray. Time may heal all wounds, but public relations and company transparency will ultimately decide the fate of the CEREUS network.