Home / Poker News April 2012 / No Official Confirmation in the PokerStars – Full Tilt Case. Yet.
No Official Confirmation in the PokerStars – Full Tilt Case. Yet.
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2012-04-26 08:02
While several officially backed announcements have surfaced in the wake of the rumors launched a couple of days ago regarding the possibility (or rather the certainty) of PokerStars acquiring Full Tilt Poker and repaying all its players – US and international – in full, thus far neither PokerStars officials nor the DoJ made any kind of meaningful comments on the matter.
The fact that GBT is now out of the picture is pretty much a certainty, as is the fact that
PokerStars are engaged in negotiations with the DoJ. Exactly what these negotiations are about and how far they’ve thus far progressed is quite unclear though.
Rumor has it that the deal discussed by the two parties is a $750 million one, a number doubted by many insiders. Finally, after days of wild speculations, the Head of PokerStars’ Corporate Communications, Eric Hollreiser saw it fit to
make a brief announcement, in which all he basically did was to confirm that his side had indeed been engaged in negotiations with the DoJ over Full Tilt poker. He said that due to the confidential nature of the negotiations, he couldn’t release any specific information whatsoever.
The news regarding PokerStars’ potential takeover of its biggest long-time competitor generated quite a bit of emotion within the ranks of the
online poker community. The response was mostly positive: it is obvious that most of the players who have funds tied up at the now defunct operation prefer to be repaid by PokerStars, rather than through the scheme proposed by GBT.
The lack of certainly has fuelled quite a lot of outlandish hopes and dreams too. Some are now hoping that the DoJ deal will mean PokerStars will be allowed back into the US market once regulation and legalization happens. Many are keen to point out that PokerStars already have a strategic alliance in place with Wynn’s Casinos, so for them, returning to the US market wouldn’t be that long of a shot anyway.
