On Wednesday, Amaya announced that its PokerStars and Full Tilt brands (currently more than 95 million registered costomers combined) had been authorised to operate in New Jersey, USA. Both sites have been "offline" in the United States for more than four years after Black Friday, so this is definitely good news to many online poker enthusiast in the state of New Jersey, where 888, partypoker and two other sites currently operate.
"We are very pleased to add New Jersey to the long list of regulated markets that have found PokerStars and Full Tilt suitable to offer real-money online gaming," said David Baazov, Chairman and CEO of Amaya. "I want to thank the DGE for their thorough and fair review of our business. We look forward to bringing our popular brands, innovative technology, marketing prowess and world-class security and game integrity to the growing New Jersey online gaming market. We anticipate providing additional details of our launch plans in the near future."
The process for Amaya to get its two poker brands approved by New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement hasn't been easy. PokerStars Blog reported that "the DGE's review of PokerStars was extremely thorough and exhaustive, including a detailed review of Amaya's operations and technology, sworn interviews with more than 70 individuals and visits to approximately a half dozen international jurisdictions."
"Since the acquisition, we have consistently delivered on our stated strategy," said Baazov. "Today's announcement follows the divesture of our B2B businesses for total gross proceeds of approximately US$524.8 million; the launch of casino games on PokerStars, which we estimate has one of the largest active user bases of any online casino; the refinancing of our long term debt and the reduction of our annual interest expense by approximately US$62 million. We are excited about our new product pipeline and enthusiastic that we will experience growth in existing and emerging markets in the future."
source: PokerStars Blog
