I have independently confirmed from multiple sources.

http://www.onlinepokerreport.com/196...r-single-site/

Amaya will merge liquidity between PokerStars and Full Tilt in the spring of 2016, OPR has confirmed.

The Full Tilt brand itself will continue to be marketed.

PokerTube was first to report that significant change are underway at Full Tilt.

The casino product will also merge onto a single underlying platform.

As dreadful as FTP is these days, this seems like a pretty dumb move by them. Doing this will basically eliminate whatever worth FTP had left. Even if it wasn't that much, and I'd argue they had a lot to do if they wanted to reverse course, I do think they were making a profit.

Merging with PS will accomplish nothing. Then the same PS players will run both sites, some of the recreational players that were still enjoying FTP will leave, and nothing will be better.

There were at least some people that enjoyed playing on a smaller site. It's a bit less intense for people so there is a niche. Merging them eliminates anything unique about FTP so it may as well not exist.

If they are actually losing money then it makes more sense but I don't think they are losing money with the traffic they have even if they aren't making that much.

I disagree with most of this. Even if FT is making money after all the expenses isn't reason enough to keep it open. How many of the current players on Full Tilt won't just go to Stars after the merge? I'd say over 70% so the reason to keep it open is for is that last 30% which isn't enough.

I hope the software goes to another company that does something with it. I feel bad for the lower level employees that will lose their job. I hope that Senior management doesn't move over to Stars as they have proven over the last few years that they are incapable of running a site... even with the benefit of being propped up by Stars

I think given Amaya's track record it is very likely they will eventually be looking to sell the software, particularly if they remain public.

This is why they are moving it over...then they can sell FTP branding/software without losing customer base.

First:they destroyed Ongame.
Second:they destroyed FullTilt.
Third:well,Stars is the ongoing project...
Fourth:???

There were others along the way as well, Amaya do seem to leave a lot of empty carcasses behind them.

Can someone explain where the **** Amaya gets their money from? Where have they made money? Somehow taking a huge loan to acquire a site doesn't make profit unless you either pay off your loan and then profit or sell for more than you paid. What gives? Where have they ever made a straight profit above debt?

They have a HUGE writedown it is not only about profits.

Amaya didn't destroy FTP, there was no way to recover brand reputation after Black Friday.

If the fish don't trust the site and deposit , the regs won't play there.

If they sell the software Stars will no longer have an online monopoly. They will never do that.

This move was inevitable when Stars eliminated the rakeback model and sponsored pros and acquired the IP rights to rush poker. The acquisition itself was geared more towards a solution of solving the DOJ PR crisis and to dimiss the civil complaints against Scheinberg.

What this decision does do is decrease the operating costs of two separate platforms from a technical and customer support perspective and create an asset that may be readily sold to the highest bidder. My guess is the platform and developer human capital are worth in the $50-100M range

I don't actually think this is true at all, the reputation was repaired just fine with PokerStars as owners.

What did kill FTP was the loss of the US player base. The market was cut in half and they were not competitive in terms of rakeback for euro grinders for the players that were left. 50% of their customer base was USA players pre black Friday.


Totally agree that this was by far and away the dominating reason for the purchase. As a business FTP was finished, $350m in debt with massive legal issues. Nobody in their right mind would have bought it. Scheinberg was the only one who had a reasonable reason to.

I´d love for some Euro site with decent traffic/crappy software to pick it up.

888 comes to mind.

Checked out one of their 'big' holiday promos in December, and couldn't believe how dead it was over there - they were offering a $10 bonus for winning 100 hands of 10PLO. Which might not sound like a big amount, except that there were only enough of us to fill *one* table of 10PLO.

Checked in again a couple of weeks ago, and this time even the night time schedule of tourneys (EST) appeared to be pared down (due to lack of interest)?

With the way things have been going, guess the shelving of FT sometime in 2016 was inevitable - still sad to see it happen, when there's been some good times to be had on that site in the past. Only started playing there after the Scheibergs picked it up as part of the DOJ settlement, but enjoyed the first Gold Rush promo (only the first one had good prizes), and the miniFTOPS tourneys. Also the cat avi looked like grumpy cat on the mobile app ...

Anybody else still have FT points in their account? Hope we get a decent conversion rate (haven't had a chance to read the article in the OP yet - was there any word about FT points?)

agreed, but do you really think they'd sell FTP? seems like any potential buyer would do so only with the intention to compete.

Wasn't there an "FTP Player Rep" who was posting on 2p2 saying all the changes that FTP was making were going to save FTP/the game of poker?

Wtf happened to that?

Obv if FTP was cruising along this doesn't happen.

Amaya themselves say their goal is to markedly shrink poker revenues relative to their other offerings. They've never seemed to be overly concerned with their poker brand, their focus has instead been on their "consumer base".

If the 50-100M number is accurate that would prove too tempting for a public Amaya to pass up imo. I would say >3:1 they sell it within two years.

I think you guys are giving Amaya way too much credit. I don't have hard numbers but I seem to remember roughly two years ago FullTilt being the number two site by a healthy margin. They promptly nose dove it into a cornfield. It would be hard to do worse if you were trying.

I wonder if they will keep two different reward programs?

No, they won't.

Don't ask me my source tho, i don't remember what it is.

Yeah what you say is true point taken, it has been badly managed as well.

That was a witty remark

The article linked in the OP states clearly,

Yeah, great idea - sell arguably the best poker software on the market to your biggest competitor.