The US Department of Justice confirmed it has a copy of the Absolute Poker software platform. PokerFuse.com reported that DOJ Attorney Jason H. Cowley, who is working under lead prosecutor Preet Bharara, received the software from Quad Dimensions; the Korean software developers tasked with servicing the platform for the indicted poker company.
Quad Dimensions CEO Young Jae “Christian” Lee relinquished a copy of the software and renounced any claim his company had to the Absolute Poker platform.
Young Jae Lee and his partner Chul Jae “CJ” Lee were among nine Quad Dimension shareholders who were left with nothing after AP’s shell company Madeira Fjord AS, were forced into bankruptcy after Avoine executed a rescission agreement. The agreement transferred control of the AP assets back to Avoine another front company Blanca Games.
This all comes from the latest filings by the US Attorney’s office in a clarification of their rebuttal against the Absolute Poker ownership group, “Avoine—Servico de Consultadoria e Marketing”.
The DOJ had been looking to seize the software and the company’s database in hopes of reselling them to raise funds and clear up any legitimate claims against Avoine. These would include the former players who have yet to receive a dime from the group after Black Friday. The Commonwealth of Kentucky still has a claim against AP but according to the filings, the DOJ is looking to dismiss those claims that resulted from Kentucky’s 2008 domain seizure attempt of 140 URLs related to online gambling.
The DOJ’s attempt to resell the software and database won’t bring nearly the windfall the sale of Full Tilt to PokerStars did.
The technology is aging rapidly and without the original developers, who clearly wouldn’t touch this system again, it’s not likely to garner much attention beyond some smaller start-ups unable to develop their own platform. Even then if the documentation does come with the package, it’s doubtful it’s up to date and as it will be written in Korean and likely to raw for anyone to use effectively, it won’t be worth much to the DOJ.
The database isn’t worth much given that there is no online poker market for the vast majority of the names contained within and once PokerStars purchased FTP, it’s highly doubtful the Absolute database would contain anything new.
