Among many reasons, Amaya is a publicly traded company in Canada that provides software to government gaming.

Can anyone explain how this changes things for the north American market?

Negreanu now a gazillionaire.

Probably full from eating a lobster dinner bought with your money.

I'm concerned about this too but they do own OnGame and never blocked Canadians on there.

If Pokerstars returns to the US, will it be operating like PS.fr, PS.it? Can someone clarify this to me?

Answer is yes - except US states are all a lot smaller than Italy or France, but sharing liquidity with dot com player pool will take federal legislation that looks unlikely

A company that basically has the 'go-ahead' in the states just bought PS which means they can use PS as one of their sites- THIS IS HUGE! I live in NV and they have partnered up with the Golden Nugget already to bring about online poker in this state. All 'bad actor' bull**** DOES go out the window because they now, technically, have nothing to do with each other. Amaya is now the biggest online gaming co in the world WHO ALREADY had their foot in the US door......

F*** you Adelson!!!!!!!!

Sure, at first it will be state by state, but they're in! and we have to wait for all states to share the player pools eventually.....

Not so fast, you ought to read the language of the 'bad actors clause' because it excludes 'assets of' which means intellectual property and database. IN other words, the software is tainted for the duration of the exclusion period.

No bad actors clause in NJ means they will likely get in there, especially with the exit of the Scheinbergs.

But no NV, and no CA

From BloombergBusinessweek

You may be completely right John, but all that means is the Tribes in CA will all go back to opposing internet poker rather than see one operator dominate the market.

If they are going to be shut out, there is no reason for them to support a bill.

He must be under the mistaken impression that the objections to Pokerstars actually lie with the ownership, rather than the fear of market domination by a single provider.

There wouldn't be 'tainted assets' language in the bad actors clause if the issue was really one of ownership.

Right, $4.9 billion of smart money is under a 'mistaken impression'. If only they had the foresight to hire you as a consultant

Why are CA tribes so scared of pokerstars?Obviously after the UIGEA pokerstars dominated the market but before that partypoker had the largest market share. Why can't tribes find other operators to compete with pokerstars?

These lawyers would disagree with you

http://www.heydary.com/publications/...rs_canada.html

"Criminal Prohibitions

Part VII of the Criminal Code of Canada (the “Code”) makes it an offence to operate a commercial gaming enterprise. Although these sections were enacted to deal with traditional gambling in Canada, they have also been applied to most forms of Internet gaming. Except for gaming conducted over the Internet by a provincial government, online gaming continues to be illegal in Canada.

What if only some of the relevant gaming activities occur on Canadian soil?

According to R. v. Libman (1985), 21 D.L.R. (4th) 174, a person may be convicted for acts undertaken in Canada in pursuit of a commercial gaming enterprise even where Canadians are not involved in the gaming or the placing of bets or wagers.

On the issue of Internet jurisdiction, the Federal Court of Appeal in SOCAN v. Canadian Association of Internet Providers (2002), 215 D.L.R. (4th) 118 (“Tariff 22”), found that the location of the host server was not conclusive in determining the jurisdiction of Internet activity. The most significant connecting factors to Internet activity were held by the court to be the location of: 1) the content provider, 2) the end user, and 3) the intermediaries, in particular the host server.

According to R. v. Nelson, [1997] M.J. No. 654; affirmed [1999] M.J. No. 382 , the purpose of the gaming, betting and wagering sections of the Code are to prevent persons from attempting to profit from the gaming of others. Accordingly, courts will consider both the intent and effect of an Internet enterprise where Canadian residents are either spending money on, or profiting from, commercial gaming in order to determine whether sufficient “connecting factors” exist to justify extending criminal jurisdiction over the activity."

Amaya is a publicly traded company in Canada. Amaya has contracts and provides gaming to provincial lottery corporations. Amaya would like to be involved with providing software for all types of regulated gaming in Canada as our provinces slowly adopt and regulate online gaming.

If, despite all this, Amaya decided to:

1. Risk breaking Canadian law and opening themselves up to lawsuits from their shareholders
2. Abandon any chance of participating in the regulated environment that gaming in Canada is moving towards

they would certainly become a major target for provincial lotteries to pressure law enforcement to take action.

Not a lot of upside to staying.

Add all these up and I don't see how Stars can stay in Canada.

This!
Moreover it looks like the old stars managment just gave up, didn't see a light in the tunel for the US market.

Just in Quebec, I believe. As others have mentioned, I don't think Amaya has pulled their current poker offerings from Canada, unlike IPN did - I wonder if IPN was being overly cautious. Also, I know Quebec has always been very distinct from the rest of Canada in terms of gaming laws (among many other things) - might this be why they haven't had to do anything with OnGame?

I'd give up for 4.9 billion.

Why do people think states would be segregated from each other and from the ROW players?

Because they are now, and there hasn't been any sudden moves to change that, and no moves whatsoever to allow ROW players.

Why do you think they wouldn't be?

They have a lot more to lose now

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu_RRBh_EKU&t=0m2s

OLG couldn't possibly **** it up...right?

It seems weird to me that Scheinberg steps up and saves FTP to save online poker and then just basicly steps out? In order to probably enter the US market which looks like it will not be worth much for the next few years? I don't understand.

At any rate the amount of debt they are putting on this company is staggering. Who is Amaya really? Who owns it/who runs it and what is their experience? Banks don't just step up and offer 4 billion USD to anyone who wants it for transactions like this. This makes me to believe Pokerstars will have more control over the new company than we know... I don't see anyone else in the online gambling market getting this kind of money.

Has something been announced on what will happen to the shareholders? Is 100% of the company traded publicly?

What's interesting about this is that we'll finally see how big and profitable PS really is.

I think this is probably bad for poker & the industry long term. The change in management is troublesome considering how well the company operated to this point including all of their decisions related to Black Friday & how every other rival except maybe Party (which still was massively reduced post UIEGA) went under/forced to make dramatic changes. The debt load/pressure applied here is fascinating, I want to see all of the details now that Stars is public & investable.

Dont the rational group own Ipoker aswel? If so assume this doesn't change?

No