The Cereus Poker Network, the home to UB.com and Absolute Poker, was sold to Blanca Games, Inc. on Thursday.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, according to a press release of the sale. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission authorized the sale of Cereus to Blanca from its parent company, Tokwiro Enterprises.
Blance is led by Stuart Gordon, an “e-gaming entrepreneur,” according to the release, who founded bingomania.com and Helix Gaming International, Ltd. Gordon said this of the purchase of the network:
The acquisition of Cereus is a significant opportunity for us. Cereus is a major platform of well-managed assets. Over the past few years, it has created new brands, like ub.com, that are extremely well-positioned in the most desirable demographic in our market: players in the 20s and 30s age brackets. From our perspective, we have acquired a large, sophisticated online gaming operation with state-of-the art capabilities, ranging from compliance to business intelligence to online marketing to customer service. We see a tremendous growth opportunity in this deal and beyond, as Blanca seeks additional acquisitions in the market.
Gordon went on to say that the sale of the network would result in no immediate changes at either UB or Absolute Poker, and that any changes in the future would be in line with improvements to the site, rather than wholesale alterations.
Interestingly, the press release mentions security as one of the strengths of the two Cereus network poker rooms, even though many would argue that has been the network’s biggest shortcoming. Superuser scandals were uncovered on Ultimate Bet and Absolute in 2007, and fallout from that still lingers today. Earlier this year, the website pokertableratings.com uncovered an encryption vulnerability on the network, which was quickly fixed.
The Cereus network is one of the top 10 online poker networks in the world. The network has been in existence since November of 2008, when two poker rooms, Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker, combined their player bases to form the network. Ultimate Bet was later rebranded as UB.
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