PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker Parent Bought by Amaya for $4.9 Billion

It is reported that Amaya Gaming bought Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars parent, the Rational Group, for $4.9 billion this past Thursday.

According to the press release, the parent company of the Rational Group, Oldford Group, will give their shares “to a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amaya” and the founder and CEO of the Rational Group Mark Scheinberg will give his resignation once the transaction has been completed.

Furthermore, the transaction will not affect the online poker services provided by Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars and the entire executive management team of the Rational Group will remain as it is. Online gamblers will continue to enjoy uninterrupted gaming experience on these sites. Both online poker sites have a combined 85 million registered users.

In addition, Amaya is planning to introduce more online casino games into the Full Tilt Poker site and help the Rational’s brand develop more in the departments of sports betting, online casino and social gaming.

David Baazov CEO of Amaya said: “Our intent is to support the company growth in the sectors of sports betting, online casino gambling and social gaming.” As of this writing, PokerStars is poker-only website, while Full Tilt website has recently introduced online casino games.

A fully-featured online casino is expected to open its virtual doors later this year. Baazov believes that the companies of the Rational Group can attract new players as well as offer more gaming possibilities such as slot games and tables to their millions of players.