Updated on 22 Feb 26 by
Avatar photo PokerStrategy Editorial
Staff

Thank you, PokerStars!

In this column, PokerStrategy.com CEO Dominik 'Korn' Kofert discusses his feelings regarding the recently announced PokerStars purchase of Full Tilt Poker's assets.

korn
Dominik korn Kofert

More than 15 months after the infamous events of Black Friday, the wait for players finally comes to an end.

On July 31st 2012, PokerStars and the Department Of Justice announced that PokerStars will take over what remains of Full Tilt Poker and will make sure that all non-US Full Tilt Poker players are repaid their account balances in full.

This is much more than the player base could have hoped for during the long wait. After many possible deals were contemplated but fell apart, including most prominently the one put forward by Group Bernard Tapie, PokerStars came to the rescue.

PokerStars will pay $547 million to the DOJ and will cover the outstanding non-US player funds - a total of $184 million - in full. These are far better terms than were originally proposed under the Tapie deal and comes as a great relief and surprise to all affected players.

Now the question is what happens next? PokerStars has stated that they will want to keep Full Tilt Poker as a separate brand and relaunch it in selected jurisdictions. It is yet unknown whether PokerStars and Full Tilt will share liquidity going forward, but PokerStars have indicated they wish to keep the Full Tilt software.

Once the acquisition is completed and Full Tilt goes back online, PokerStars, which already has a world-wide market share of around 60%, will have substantially grown the margin by which it is the largest poker operator in the world. With most competitors severely struggling, I will not be surprised if PokerStars/Full Tilt's market share reaches 75% by the end of 2013.

For many, this market dominance will be something to worry about. However, judging by PokerStars’ conduct over the past years and assuming that the company’s great philosophy does not change now that PokerStars.com co-founder Isai Scheinberg has to step down, I think that PokerStars will act responsibly and with the players in mind going forward – as it has always done in the past.

We at PokerStrategy.com would like to thank PokerStars for making this deal possible and for bringing the worst incident in online poker to a happy ending.

By Dominik 'korn' Kofert, PokerStrategy.com CEO