blonde poker forum

"After being reportedly close to reaching a deal on Thursday, the Amaya Gaming Group Inc. and the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, Rational Group, announced a deal on Thursday that could ultimately pave the way for the two online poker rooms to return to the U.S.

Amaya and privately-held Oldford Group Limited Limited (the parent company of Rational Group) struck a definitive deal in which entitles Amaya to all issued and outstanding shares of Oldford Group for an aggregate purchase price of $4.9 billion, meaning PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have been sold to Amaya in an unprecedented acquisition within the world of online gaming.............."

http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2014/06/amaya-acquires-pokerstars-and-full-tilt-poker-14267.htm

Have just done some reading round this and can't say I like what I here from a personal standpoint. The aim is obviously to get back into the US, but at what cost?

I love stars and we are super lucky to have them as the industry leader in online poker. A different ownership may run the site in a different way and I can't see that way being as good as life under the Scheinbergs.

In calendar years 2012 and 2013, Oldford Group recorded revenues of $976 million and $1.1 billion, respectively, and adjusted EBITDA of $342 million and $420 million, respectively.

I thought it would be more tbh.

From the amaya groups' website:

'Rational Group’s executive management team will be retained and online poker services provided by PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker will be unaffected by the Transaction, with players continuing to enjoy uninterrupted access to their gaming experience.'

Reassuring.

Amaya is a much smaller company. They're only putting up a small amount of money for this sale, getting big loans secured on Rational Group for most of the rest, and releasing $500M in new shares. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Scheinberg et al are the ones buying those shares.

What's thought of the share potential once they reenter the U.S?

(http://i.imgur.com/tXqlM2n.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/0Zq0N2J.png)

Gutted. This is really bad for poker in my opinion.

why is that please, Adam?

Pokerstars has been seen to be support poker as a skill game. They avoided, for the most part, casino games and the like which must detract from the overall money circulated in the poker economy. I think the current owners did a good job of maintaining a long term vision and supported poker as a sport (mind sport or w/e) compared to a company that will not think long term, or for the good of the game in my opinion. I'd much rather have had the Schienbergs (sp?) and a small chance of entering the US market, then owners who I know nothing about, seem extremely corporate/ profit driven and a better chance of entering the US market. Party has become a joke of a site since it was floated on the stock exchange, regularly breaks its own rules, going back on guarantees, handing out under the table rakeback deals and attempting some weird poker ecology thing that did little to protect new players but did a lot to encourage multiaccounting. Nevermind, charging people to withdraw!

Notice how in the second picture posted, the online poker bit isn't circled for future growth opportunities. I just grabbed those pics of 2+2 so I have no source, but I'm really unhappy. Plus if the owners are getting out now, they probably don't anticipate future growth anytime soon. They should, in theory, have the most information about their business which is scary when they choose to sell it.

Amaya owns Ongame? i think, bought in 2012

wonder what the strategy for that network is now?

Amaya also bought ongame and that network has slowly died off since then and had a bunch of cashout problems (some may not be their fault, but its hardly encouraging.)

We had a good run :(

I would be amazed if it was Scheinberg et al that are buying those shares given their involvement would preclude entry back into the US which appears to be a major driver of the deal.

Yeah not liking this.  Think it's bad in the long run. 

think it's way too early to be taking a position on whether this is good for poker or not btw....

Do i need to withdraw my balance yet? I have $123.98 on there.

yeah would assume its a rights issue anyway, so it will be existing shareholders given the first opportunity.

As a slight aside, I wonder if the UKGC (Stars have to be licensed by them later this year) would have raised an eyebrow at the Scheinbergs anyway given that Isai is apparently a "fugitive from justice" in the US.  Baldfred have shut out a load of grey area countries apparently because they are worried about the UKGC's strict attitude.

The UK regulators are usually okay with licensing people that have criminal records or indictments etc from the States on stuff that is legal here ie. bookmaking.  My personal experience of it is pre GC but I ould be fairly surprised it that has changed given some of the people that have licenses here still.

Amaya's acquisition of the Rational Group will "transform the entire global gaming industry."

http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2014/06/amaya-daavid-baazov-on-the-acquisition-of-rational-group-14270.htm

Think it's a dreadful decision, seeing as the owners are based in Canada, don't know what sort of chance I have anymore! Ipoker FTW!!

The owners are based in Canada?  In before the layout looks like this:

(http://www.bagshot-row.org/chuckie-egg/images/anfreleases/AnF_BBC32K_CylonAttack_Screenshot.png)

Having sportsbetting and casino games on the site could make the games softer, of course.

Good to see Amaya got some practice running a poker network by running Ongame so well......

If their running of ongame is anything to go by then this is terrible news for everyone and I wouldnt expect the future to be too bright for online poker.  Ive been playing ongame for years and watched while they managed to hilariously screw up everything that was ever good about it and drive away skins and customers from their network.  The network is currently on deaths door and personally I have some money stuck on a skin who have been unable to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to their players for a year now.  This was going on for at least a year and theyre blaming "3rd part payment processors" however in that time ongame either incredibly didnt know what was going on (impossible) or knew what was going on, did nothing about it and let the skin remain on the network for a year taking deposits from players that they could never pay back out.  The skin has only recently been kicked off the network and still ongame make no actual attempt to compensate the players when they clearly have to take some blame for the whole situation.  They have also set up their whole operation in a way where they dont have to deal with customers ever.  There is no ongame network support or contact email, Ive spoken with people who work for ongame privately (on the tech side) and asked for contact details of someone who could deal with this and been told there is no single person from that side of the company with external contact details who will talk to us.

Anytime there is some problem with the network we are supposed to contact the skin support to deal with it, if there is a problem with the skin who are we supposed to go to if the network wont give us the time of day?  The regulator?  A group of us contacted the company the supposedly regulated this skin, a Malta-based company called The LGA but they claim they only actually regulate any play from within Malta itself so it appears they've been operating under a regulatory body that covers one country and using it to pass itself off as being regulated around the world.  Id guess other sites are doing the exact same thing, Id advise getting everything off ongame ASAP if you still play there.

Pretty incred that all this money from players is stuck on there, the skin, the regulators and the network wont do a thing yet the owners of the network find $4.9billion to buy Pokerstars and FTP.  Absolute jokers!

Amaya will need a UKGC license by the end of the year.  If you feel strongly about the Ongame issue, email the UKGC and state that you think Amaya are not fit and proper, giving your reasons.

Haha a ref to Southpark when the animation gets really old when the film goes to Canada? LOL

And here is to hoping the US sticks to its guns!

Good spot.

Some light reading

http://www.onlinepokerreport.com/12831/amaya-pokerstars-investor-presentation-transcript/

I didn't get that. Ironically PokerStars software has always been developed in Canada I think.

I can't believe that Amatay has bought Sky Poker.

He can't even cook a decent breakfast.




(http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag66/plainreddog/2933795101_066241e907_zps00f6b777.jpg)