Pokerstars to Merge Full Tilt Traffic? Play by Amaya

PokerTube have learned that Amaya will merge the player liquidity of Full Tilt Poker (FTP) with Pokerstars some time within the next 6 weeks. They may even scrap the Full Tilt brand altogether, according to sources close to FTP.

Update – Sources from within Full Tilt Poker have since confirmed the authenticity of the story. They asked not to be named.

Player traffic has been flagging at Full Tilt Poker for some time now, with the once great home of high-stakes online poker now sitting in 11th place on the poker room traffic rankings, according to Pokerscout. Clearly, Amaya Inc. and its CEO David Baazov have decided that enough is enough.

FTP was once a brand which grew worldwide due to an obscene marketing ‘budget’ spent on maintaining a luxurious high stakes poker label, lining the pockets of the household pros, and essentially bankrolling their high stakes escapades – much to the delight of the public observer. This is simply no longer in keeping with the Amaya company strategy, and even when previous owners Rational Group inherited FTP as part of a deal from the US department of justice, their marketing strategy was questionable. The new owners of Amaya no longer wish to invest money into an asset which simply isn’t giving their investors and lenders the returns they demand, and they don’t want to fight an expensive marketing campaign on two fronts, each with the same ultimate vision and goal. Consolidation is the preferred option here.

It’s no secret that Amaya have focused their efforts on increasing profit margins, repaying their debts, and making big impact decisions which have angered the purists and kept their big money investors at bay. They changed the VIP system, severely impacting their most valuable and highest revenue generating customers, causing a major reaction in the form of a player strike. More recently, Pokerstars completely removed regular HU cash tables, leaving only ZOOM tables.

However, the decision to merge with FTP is certainly one that makes sense – It will boost liquidity on their flagship site and they’ll hope to ‘stop the rot’ on a brand that is slowly but surely diminishing as one of the major players in the online poker game.

This news comes on the back of a recent revelation that Amaya CEO David Baazov will bid to acquire Amaya and take them private, which would return the almighty power of innovation and creation back to the hands of the company. The would no longer be stifled by the expectations of analysts and investors. Alexandre Dreyfus is one relentless poker investor who buys into that ballsy idea.

Of course it remains to be seen whether they’ll scrap the Full Tilt brand completely, but Baazov is clearly a realist and an aggressive strategist who won’t care for any sentimental value poised by this once great behemoth of the online poker World.

Is it too early to say ‘RIP FTP’?