Without getting deeply into it, there is so much more to antitrust law than you just put forward. It isn't cut and dry. Just because you merge with a competitor, DOES NOT mean you are a monopoly. Just because you have more than 50% share of market DOES NOT mean you are a monopoly. There are other requirements and other justifications for having more than 50% and merging. I think we can leave these concerns up to Pokerstars counsel though. I'm sure they have done their due diligence on the matter.

THIS is the first concern I had reading the Tapie press release, something about him pursuing other avenues if all the employees don't keep their jobs set off my litigation alarm.

Does anyone know if there is some basis for litigation in Ireland (or Europe) were PokerStars to buy FTP but close down PocketKings and put people out of work?

I personally thing that keeping them separate while including the best parts of FTP into PS softwarewould be more beneficial to PS. This gives them the ability to sell FTP for a profit down the line if they so choose after taking the best parts of FTP.

I wouldn't anything shady past Tapie. Scumbag.

This. They surely would have considered all of this and seem to have deemed it not applicable to this situation.

He hired them pre-emptively. Unless they had a written agreement with the DOJ that was ripped up or something, I don't see how this wouldn't be thrown out of court.

Basis? Well likely who has the most bucks or pounds or euros to influence events. Who do you like, Pokerstars, or the brilliant Mons. Tapie et al??

I want to listen to DF podcast, but it seems to be takin a long time to load. Do I have to download it to listen, I cant just click the link and have it load like a stream?

Exactly. There's so much in law and in the science of economics than ANYONE has put forward, so no one is entitled to put absolute statements and act as if he knows the full implications of the deal.

Besides that, I don't know if a merged PS is going to be legally a monopoly and it doesn't interest me. In any case US antitrust law doesn't apply.

Moreover, I don't believe there's a clear threshold that delineates a monopolistic market from a competitive market. I think it's a matter of degrees.

Looking at OPR, I see that in 2010, the last year when FTP was around, there were 2 million players in PS, another 1 million on FTP and 300,000 on the rest of the networks. So PS had something like a 60% of the market. If FTP comes back with the same number, the merged entity would have 3 million of the tournament market as oposed to 300-400,000 going to the rest of the networks. That's like a 90% market share.

I don't care if you call that a monopoly or not, that would be a battle of semantics. Given the existence of network effects, I would expect that there would be sub-optimal prices compared to the pre-black Friday status quo and I don't think it's an unreasonable hypothesis to make.

Now, does it mean, I hate the deal? No. Is it the worst thing in the world? No. But it's also a significant development that won't go away by trying to apply some people's fundamentalist ideology.

Please elaborate. As of this moment, FTP has exactly zero market share anywhere.

one last point to the monopoly concerns... i think PS would fulfill the conditions to be a monopoly BUT i think regulatory bodies lump poker in with all online gaming/gambling and if you do that, PS does not look that big anymore...

LUCKY FOR US!!!

LOL what? Is stars even real.

This is another reason in support of the proposition that PS simply won't bring back the FTP brand as an operating site. And possibly why a lot of former FTP affiliates are crapping their pants at the idea of PS purchasing the assets of FTP.

Mods, can someone make a containment thread from the whole monopoly argument. This thread is unreadable due to the amount of facepalming arguments people are having on what is/isn't a monopoly.

Thanks in advance

that's obviously a joke.

This +1000000000000

What's really aggravating is people who don't even have a fundamental grasp of antitrust law, trying to claim ZOMG monopoly.

First off, a company with zero market share, by definition, cannot be monopolistic. FTP has zero market share anywhere in the known universe right now. PS has exactly zero market share in the United States.

Second, the mere existence of a monopoly is not, repeat, is NOT an violation of anti-trust law.

Any other discussion about a merged PS/FTP entity as a monopolistic entity must begin with those points, or said discussion is inherently fatally flawed.

Buy UB! I'd 100% go back to fulltime online grinding on Pokerstars/FT2 if they were to help us UB/AP players get our rolls back!

Pokerstars has always done the right thing. Let Pokerstars run the show

fyp. Not cool to be making jokes at this time about this situation.

yes this, it is ridic to bog down a legit very important thread because we have to read trolls talk about complex things they have absolutely no clue about and that arent true

So since I can't read through, are we all making the assumption that because Stars has actually been talking to the DoJ for a year, GBT didn't actually back out, they just lost in the race with Stars to come to an agreement and bowed out because Stars would do something they wouldn't in paying back the players?

Just want a one paragraph summarization of events here for myself.

EDIT: Has there been any more conversation of Tilt/Stars actually coming back to the US as a result of this?

GBT backed out, once DOJ told those broke dicks to bring some real money to the table and quit trying to purchase FTP with the actual players' existing deposits.

lol no, no way Tapie bowed out. The guy was gonna get FTP for pennies on dollar, all he cares about is his own pockets, hes not bowing out for the sake of players.

Surely if we just wait a few more years the interest from existing FTP will pay sufficient to pay everyone back anyway!

Cool yeah, I didn't think GBT would ever step out of that deal especially knowing the money it DID pull in when operating. Stars made a great play obv...

Hopefully we get some REAL news that is promising soon

Couldn't stars legally build another site and make it the second largest site within a year if it wanted? Really don't see how there's any anti trust issue here when there are so many competing poker sites.

Diamond Flush made it clear that the DOJ told GBT to gtfo, not the other way around, silly billy