Baccarat Staking operates in the gambling MLM niche.

The company is headed up by Michael Sander, who for some reason is going by “Michi Sander”.

Believed to be a German national, on social media Sander represents he is currently based out of Las Vegas, Nevada.

This corresponds with Baccarat Staking claiming to be “coordinated in Las Vegas, United States.”

Back in the day Michael Sander ran the pro-scam publication Obtainer Online.

BehindMLM first came across Sander after Obtainer Online ran a puff-piece on ViziNova scammer Renato Rodriguez.

Prior to Vizinova’s launch in 2014, BehindMLM had been closely following Rodriguez’s participation in WCM777.

Both Vizinova and WCM777 were MLM Ponzi schemes.

ViziNova saw Sander migrate from just supporting scams in Obtainer Online, to assisting Rodriguez launch Vizinova.

Sander (right) signed on as Vizinova’s “Chief Consultant”.

ViziNova has engaged OBTAINER’s founder Michael Sander, who as chief consultant has developed the company structure and the set-ups.

In April 2014 Sander described Vizinova as

 a business concept that is coherent, transparent and profitable.

ViziNova isn’t a Ponzi scheme or a pyramid system because from the very outset Renato Rodriguez and Gutemberg dos Santos are demonstrating transparency.

As Vizinova began to collapse in early 2015, Sander distanced himself from the Ponzi scheme.

In March 2017 the SEC revealed it had charged Renato Rodriguez and Gutemberg Dos Santos with fraud, alleging Vizinova to be a $5 million dollar Ponzi scheme.

Rodriguez and Gutemberg settled the SEC’s charges.

They would continue to defraud consumers through AirBit Club, leading to their respective arrests and indictments last year.

Another Ponzi scheme Sander supported through Obtainer Online was Bonofa.

Bonofa’s owners were arrested in Germany in May 2016. A month later what was left of the Ponzi scheme was fed into OneCoin.

Prior to launching Baccarat Staking in early 2021, Sander was promoting B-Epic.

One last interesting thread is Baccarat Staking’s “staking agreement”.

The document is presented to potential affiliates to agree to when they sign up.

As above, the staking agreement reveals two new identities; Fu Leung Antonio Yu and The Baccarat Stacking [sic] Group Inc. Both supposedly based out of Macau.

The agreement is put together by “Baccarat Service”, operating from the defunct website domain “baccarat-tools.de”.

A search for “Fu Leung Antonio Yu” reveals multiple baccarat themed websites, including “baccarat.schule” and “baccaratbusiness.com”. These appear to be linked to Sander’s Baccarat Staking scheme.

On the “baccarat.schule” website, Yu is cited as Baccarat Staking’s General Manager:

In 2011 US authorities tied Yu, then identified as a Hong Kong resident, to the Winsome Investment Trust Ponzi scheme.

Winsome Investment Trust was a $72 million dollar Ponzi scheme, run by Texas resident Robert J. Andres.

Yu appears on page 17 of a 2011 filed Status Report by a court-appointed Receiver;

On June 14, 2007, Andres was appointed to serve as the “personal financial and investment trustee” for Fu Leung Antonio Yu, supposedly a Hong Kong resident.

Yu signed a “Trust Declaration” giving Andres control over $10,000,000,000.00 of Yu’s funds.

A copy of that declaration is provided as exhibit 2 further down the filing (note Yu incorrectly identifies himself as “Antionio” in the document).

To the best of my knowledge Yu was never held accountable for assisting Andres.

Andres was sentenced to 56 months in prison in 2016.

Read on for a full review of Baccarat Staking’s MLM opportunity.

Baccarat Staking’s Products

Baccarat Staking has no retailable products or services.

Baccarat Staking affiliates are only able to market Baccarat Staking affiliate membership itself.

Baccarat Staking’s Compensation Plan

Baccarat Staking affiliates invest $500 or more on the promise of a daily return.

  • Rookie – invest $500 to $4999 and receive 20% of daily winnings
  • Beginner – invest $5000 to $19,999 and receive 25% of daily winnings
  • Pro – invest $20,000 to $49,999 and receive 30% of daily winnings
  • Advanced – invest $50,000 to $99,999 and receive 35% of daily winnings
  • VIP – invest $100,000 or more and receive 40% of daily winnings

Baccarat Staking represents “daily winnings” are 40% of proceeds won via baccarat gaming.

The MLM side of Baccarat Staking pays on recruitment of affiliate investors.

Baccarat Staking Affiliate Ranks

There are six ranks within Baccarat Staking’s compensation plan.

Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:

  • Prestige – satisfy Beginner tier investment criteria and recruit at least five affiliates
  • Elite – satisfy Beginner tier investment criteria and recruit at least five Prestige ranked affiliates
  • Platinum – satisfy Pro tier investment criteria and recruit at least five Elite ranked affiliates
  • Titanium – satisfy Pro tier investment criteria and recruit at least three Platinum ranked affiliates
  • Diamond – satisfy Advanced tier investment criteria and recruit at least three Titanium ranked affiliates
  • Noir – satisfy VIP tier investment criteria and recruit at least one Diamond, two Titaniums and one Platinum ranked affiliate

Referral Commissions

Baccarat Staking affiliates earn a 20% daily ROI match received by personally recruited affiliates.

Referral commissions are paid as the difference between 40% (VIP) and lesser tier affiliates.

E.g. if a VIP affiliate recruits a Rookie, they receive the full 20% difference in daily ROI payments as a referral commission.

If a Pro affiliate recruited a Beginner, they’d receive 5% and so on.

A residual component to referral commissions exists, by way of 40% being paid out on each affiliate’s daily returns.

Residual commissions are paid when the total 40% referral commission to be paid out remains outstanding.

This occurs when a Baccarat Staking affiliate ranked lower than VIP recruits a new affiliate.

After paying out the applicable referral commission rate to the recruiting affiliate, the system searches upline for a higher ranked affiliate.

Once found, they are paid their residual commission. And this process repeats until a VIP ranked affiliate is found.

E.g. A Pro affiliate recruits a Rookie. The Pro affiliate receives a 10% referral commission (30% – 20%).

This leaves 10% to be paid out, either in whole to a VIP affiliate or 5% to an Advanced and 5% to a VIP affiliate.

The system searches upline until it finds either an Advanced or VIP affiliate.

If a VIP affiliate is found first, they receive the outstanding 10%.

If an Advanced affiliate is found first, they receive 5%. The system then searches further upline to pay the remaining 5% out to.

Residual Commissions

Baccarat Staking takes 20% of daily company revenue and uses it to pay residual commissions.

Residual commissions are paid via a unilevel compensation structure.

A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):

If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.

If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.

Residual commissions are paid as a 20% allocation of daily returns earned on money invested across six levels of the unilevel team.

Affiliates must qualify for each of the six available unilevel team levels as follows:

  • level 1 (30% of the 20% daily ROI amount generated by personally recruited affiliates) – sign up as a Baccarat Staking affiliate and invest at least $500
  • level 2 (10% of 20%) –  maintain a $500 investment and recruit four affiliates who’ve also invested $500 or more
  • level 3 (10% of 20%) – invest $5000 and recruit eight affiliates who’ve also invested $500 or more
  • level 4 (10% of 20%) – maintain a $5000 investment and recruit twelve affiliates who’ve also invested $500 or more
  • level 5 (20% of 20%) – invest $20,000 and recruit sixteen affiliates who’ve also invested $500 or more
  • level 6 (20% of 20%) – maintain a $20,000 investment and recruit twenty affiliates who’ve also invested $500 or more

Staking Reward Pool

Baccarat Staking represents 10% of baccarat winnings are used to fund six bonus pools.

  • Prestige Pool – 2%
  • Elite Pool – 2%
  • Platinum Pool – 2%
  • Titanium Pool – 2%
  • Diamond Pool – 1%
  • Noir Pool – 1%

Rank Achievement Bonus

Baccarat Staking rewards affiliates for qualifying at Prestige and higher with the following one-time bonuses:

  • qualify at Prestige and receive $1000 in investment
  • qualify at Elite and receive $2500 in investment
  • qualify at Platinum and receive $5000 in investment + “Platinum experience Vegas”
  • qualify at Titanium and receive $10,000 in investment + “Titanium experience Vegas” + a “Titanium travel retreat”
  • qualify at Diamond and receive $15,000 in investment + “Diamond experience Vegas (including suite, super sports car and 10,000 casino chips)” + a “Diamond travel retreat”
  • qualify at Noir and receive $25,000 in investment + “Noir experience Vegas (including suite, super sports car and 15,000 casino chips)” + a “Noir travel experience” + a “sports car valued at $100,000”

Note investment amounts are added to a Baccarat Staking affiliate’s existing investment balance.

Joining Baccarat Staking

Baccarat Staking affiliate membership is tied to minimum $500 investment.

Note that all payments within Baccarat Staking are made in bitcoin.

Baccarat Staking Conclusion

Michael Sander’s latest ruse saw him reinvent himself as a baccarat prodigy.

THE BACCARAT MASTERMIND

Michi Sander is also one of the most successful strategy developers for baccarat in Las Vegas and Macau.

You too can learn how easy it is to make money with Baccarat every day.

When the “Baccarat Academy” went nowhere, Sander refocused his efforts into Baccarat Staking;

MICHI SANDER has created a new business category: Baccarat Staking.

He plays with the deposited money (Bitcoins) instead of the backers (investors) and we split the profits 50/50% every day.

The backers get 50% and Michi Sander gets 50% too from the Baccarat winnings.

In a nutshell you invest cryptocurrency, that’s turned into worthless MICHI tokens, through which Sander runs a daily returns Ponzi scheme.

MICHI is a BEP-20 token. These are created on a binance chain at little to no cost.

With nothing marketed or sold to retail customers, the MLM side of Baccarat Staking operates as a pyramid scheme.

We’ll come back to Baccarat Staking being a Ponzi scheme in a minute. For now let’s take Sander at face value and dissect the business model.

Backer will provide Player with min. 500 US$ to be used for cash game at the choosen [sic] casino.

Player will use the Stake to play the game of Baccarat with no side bets.

All deposit transactions are made with BEP20-Token $MICHI only.

Backers, i.e. affiliate investors, invest $500 or more with Baccarat Staking, who then claim to generate a passive return through playing baccarat.

To establish an investment contract as per the Howey Test, we need to identify

An investment of money in a common enterprise with the expectation of profit to be derived from the efforts of others.

  • investment of money = affiliates depositing $500 or more with Baccarat Staking
  • common enterprise = Baccarat Staking
  • expectation of profit = “the backers get 50% and Michi Sander gets 50% too from the Baccarat winnings” (from Baccarat Staking’s own website)
  • derived from the efforts of others = “(Sanders) plays with the deposited money (Bitcoins) instead of the backers (investors) and we split the profits 50/50% every day” (from Baccarat Staking’s own website)

It’s pretty clear-cut. Yet this is the pseudo-compliance Sanders run Baccarat Staking under:

The term baccarat staking or simply staking, means that a baccarat investor puts up USD on behalf of baccarat players in exchange for a cut of the profits.

The person raising the money is the backer.

The supported baccarat player is the player.

By definition, staking is not an investment but an entertainment purchase.

With respect to securities law, calling an investment contract “staking” or an “entertainment purchase”, doesn’t make it any less of an investment contract.

Operating out of Las Vegas in the US, Sander’s Baccarat Staking securities offering falls under jurisdiction of the SEC.

At time of publication neither Michael Sander, Fu Leung Antonio Yu or Baccarat Staking are registered with the SEC.

This means that at a minimum, Sander, Yu and Baccarat Staking are committing securities fraud.

Given Sander’s and Yu’s past involvement in Ponzi schemes, and coupled with there being no actual evidence of Sanders generating baccarat winnings to pay daily returns with, it follows Baccarat Staking is also a Ponzi scheme.

There is no verifiable source of revenue entering Baccarat Staking other than new investment.

As with all MLM Ponzi schemes, once affiliate recruitment slows down so too will new investment.

This will starve Baccarat Staking of ROI revenue, eventually prompting a collapse.

The math behind Ponzi schemes guarantees that when they collapse, the majority of participants lose money.

 

Update 6th March 2022 – Baccarat Staking has collapsed.