Scheinbergâs to Buy Back PokerStars?
7 years ago07 Oct
(Photo: Sucessstory.com)
In the meatiest piece of gossip to hit the poker world for years, there are rumors circulating that former PokerStars owners - the Scheinberg family â are planning to buy the site back from industry giants Amaya!
Gossip and rumor can often grow arms and legs â and itâs entirely possible this is just a case of âChinese whispersâ run amok â but letâs run with it for a while and see if thereâs anything behind the shocking news.
The rumors hit the internet during a Twitter exchange between Pocket Fives co-founder Adam Small and others, with Small stating:
Poker_Hack@Grange95 Word on the street is that Stars is going to be re-privatized, and Scheinbergs back involved, leaving US again
â Adam Small (@AdamLoebSmall) October 6, 2016
The âword on the streetâ apparently began during G2E, the Global Gaming Expo, which was held in Las Vegas last week. Described as âone of the leading events of the year for the online gaming industryâ which âattracts many of the world´s top industry professionals,â itâs exactly the place youâd expect to hear truths, half-truths, wishful thinking and plain old gossip in abundance.
Quite which of these the Scheinbergâs/PokerStars âstoryâ is we have yet to discern, but there are many reasons why it would make sense for PokerStars to sell and perhaps for the Scheinbergâs to buy back their baby â and also many reasons for this not to happen!
The Scheinbergâs sale
The Scheinbergâs, father Isai and son Mark, sold PokerStars in 2014 to Amaya Inc. for a reported sum of almost $5billiion, Mark stating at the time:
Q:I am incredibly proud of the business Isai and I have built over the last 14 years, creating the worldâs biggest poker company and a leader in the iGaming space. Our achievements and this transaction are an affirmation of the hard work, expertise and dedication of our staff, which I am confident will continue to drive the companyâs success.â
The sale came two years after settling a $730million lawsuit with the US Department of Justice, which also included PokerStars buying Full Tilt and settling 95% of the player debts which were owed after the UIGEA was enforced â Black Friday as it became known in the poker world.
Enter Amaya
When the Canadian giants took over PokerStars they almost immediately started making changes, many of which have been seen as âcash grabsâ by players affected by the removal of things such as the SuperNovaElite status, increased rake and a focus on lottery-styled poker games.
The current market value of PokerStars is around half of that which Amaya paid for it, and the parent companyâs hugely-hyped foray into New Jersey is yet to bear any signs of fruit â so even if the Scheinbergâs were disallowed form the US market, thereâs no saying that will be part of PokerStars long-term plan anyway.
Added to this is the former CEO David Baazovâs indictment on charges of insider trading which I reported on here back in March of this year and his subsequent âresignationâ reported on by my colleague Malcolm Clarke just a few weeks ago, and you can see that things are not so rosy in the Amaya/PokerStars garden.
Adam Small even joked about this in his initial tweet on the recent gossip and speculation:
Bet the DOJ is glad they took control of PokerStars out of the hands of those dirty Scheinbergs, into David Baazov's righteous stewardship
â Adam Small (@AdamLoebSmall) October 6, 2016
Why buy?
Well, as businessmen, if they can buy the company at half the price they sold it for that would be a fairly decent profit! What they might then do with PokerStars is anyoneâs guess â but it certainly couldnât be anything worse than what Amaya have been doing with it over the last two years.
Of course, rumours are just that until such time as somebody in a position to know actually comments on things. But if there is even the slightest chance that this could happen it would be a happy day for many, many poker fans â many of whom are disgusted by the way Amaya have turned one of the worldâs biggest sites into a âcrap-shootâ.
When asked about the source of these G2E rumours, Small replied with this tweet:
@Grange95@Poker_Hack Heard it from a few people around G2E this year, but like most rumors, no idea where it started
â Adam Small (@AdamLoebSmall) October 6, 2016
And I guess thatâs where we leave things until, hopefully, somebody can shed more light on matters. Iâve got my feelers out, so watch this spot!
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