PokerStars and Full Tilt to Share Liquidity in April

Before 2011, Full Tilt was second only to PokerStars as the world’s biggest online poker room, but the site soon dropped off the grid after Black-Friday followed by the player segregated fund scandal. In 2012, PokerStars subsequently acquired Full Tilt with the hope of restoring the site to its former glory, but it looks like Amaya Gaming has now decided to give up on its lofty ambition. As a result, the two poker rooms are set to merge their player pools come April 1st.
Despite remaining separate brands, players will thereafter visit PokerStars or Full Tilt, as well as a host of other platforms including BetStars, Starsdraft, and Duel, by signing in via a single ‘Stars’ account. They will also have access to a merged casino product, and benefit from a larger combined player pool. Commenting on the news, Rational Group CEO Rafi Ashkenazi said:
“Players will benefit from a larger pool of players offering greater game choice, bigger prize pools. It will also make us more nimble as we can focus our technological innovation on one platform, rather than two, so we will be able to innovate more quickly and enter newly-regulating and existing markets swiftly.”
After Full Tilt relaunched in 2012, the site soon reclaimed its position as one of the top three busiest poker sites in the world. Even up until last year, Full Tilt never saw its ranking drop below 8th spot, but following a series of sweeping changes in 2015, players soon started abandoning the poker room, which is currently languishing at number 11 on PokerScout’s traffic report with 850 players over a 7-day period.
As a result of its declining fortunes, merging PokerStars and Full Tilt is expected to represent a significant saving for Amaya. Furthermore, there are even rumblings of Amaya phasing out Full Tilt completely in the future, before then selling off the brand’s distinctive software to interested parties.