[vinylweatherman]

Thanks for the warning. The fact that Bruce could not even pay ONE of his 44 clients makes me think it was definitely a Pyramid or Ponzi scheme. Not being able to withdraw from BoDog seems odd, as when I withdraw they pay within MINUTES to my Neteller, and at the time you first requested payment there were no issues with Neteller not handling gambling money.

I suspect the money from the 44 clients was used for making very large wagers with the Cipher software, but something went wrong, and it could be that the casinos have attempted to void the scheme's play, causing it to be effectively insolvent. What he probably means by his "bring it on" attitude to legal action is that there is NO MONEY to actually settle, and it will be an expensive and futile exercise.
The only other option is to pursue an action for fraud, and see if funds still in the system can be seized to compensate victims pro-rata. If all 44 of you get together and compare notes you should get the big picture. Bruce has been overly keen for you not to contact each other - classic pyramid investment scheme tactics. If you know of his physical location, you can make a complaint against local authorities.
I recall once being approached by Cipher, and being shown the software (which seems to do what it claims to - no problem with that) - but I soon got bored and have not used it - seems you need to make big bets, AND feed the data in manually, which saps any enjoyment out of it - too slow.
If the software really performed long term though, I would expect Cipher to be "rolling in it", to the extent of not having to rely on credit unions etc to perform in order to pay clients.

The agreement also claims "all play will originate from the UK", thus recent events in the US should have no impact other than delays in eWallet withdrawals from around 18th Jan.
Play, and location in, the UK does indeed mean that if Bruse can show the scheme was a gambling syndicate (such as a lottery pool, or horse betting scheme), thenunder UK law you are stuffed - gambling debt is not enforceable. IF the scheme was NOT marketed as a gambling pool, but a straight forward return on deposit (say, income based on licencing the software to others), then several laws have been broken, most importantly Bruce has not got FSA approval to take client deposits or run an investment fund, and criminal fraud may have taken place. It may be possible to effect a recovery from personal assets (house, car etc).

Other than this, the promised 15% return indicates a high risk to capital at a time of interest rates of between 3% and 5%. Outside of the gambling community, any invsetment advisor would class such a scheme (promising 15%) as very high risk of losing some or all the capital invested. Some big fund managers managed to lose the life savings of UK investors by investing in certain kinds of investment vehicles, marketed as safe, till the bottom dropped out of the stockmarket, and the highly geared nature meant investors were lucky to see 1% of they money!