PokerStars

PokerStars launched its beta play-money-only site on September 11, 2001. The company began offering real money wagering on December 12, 2001. PokerStars was originally a Costa Rican company, Rational Enterprises, which was majority owned by the Israeli Scheinberg family.[8][9] The company was subsequently moved to Onchan, Isle of Man. The move was driven by the establishment of a 0% corporate tax rate and the removal of rules barring companies from accepting casino and poker bets from the United States.[8] PokerStars holds its licence with the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission and also holds numerous licences in other jurisdictions (see Regulated Markets below). In February 2012, PokerStars acquired a European Union license granted by the Malta Lotteries and Gaming Commission.[10]

While privately owned, PokerStars had been the subject of financial media speculation regarding a possible initial public offering or merger with a publicly listed company. Analysts estimated its market value would have been approximately US$2 billion in 2006, which would have made the company one of the world's largest privately held gambling companies.[9] PokerStars overtook PartyPoker as the world's largest online poker room after the U.S. Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. Many sites, including PartyPoker, immediately suspended business with U.S. gamblers, while others, including PokerStars, did not.[11]

In December 2009, PokerStars set the world record for the biggest online tournament. The tournament entry fee was $1, and the number of entrants reached 149,196.[12] They broke that record in December 2011, when 200,000 players played in a $1 buy-in tournament with a first prize of $50,000.[13] PokerStars was so busy during the early stages of the tournament, all tournaments had to be stopped for 20 minutes because the heavy traffic crashed their servers. This record had been broken again in June 2013, with 225,000 participants. The buy-in was $1 and went completely into the prize pool, with no rake.

In January 2012, PokerStars introduced a downloadable mobile client for iOS from iTunes. In February 2012, the company also introduced a client for Android.[14]

In July 2012, PokerStars bought its former competitor, Full Tilt Poker.[15] The $731 million deal settled a civil lawsuit with the Department of Justice while giving ownership of Full Tilt Poker's assets to PokerStars.[16]

In June 2014, The Stars Group, then known as Amaya Inc, agreed to buy PokerStars and its parent company for $4.9 billion in cash.[17][18] The deal was completed on August 1, 2014.[19]

As of April 2016, they have reached an agreement with Netent to add desktop and mobile gambling games to its poker lobby in New Jersey and other locations.[20]

In February 2017, Microgaming announced a partnership with PokerStars, owned by parent company for the integration of its Quickfire platform.[21]

In July 2017, PokerStars agreed to a deal with bankruptcy administrators to acquire some of rival PKR.com's assets and in doing so will reimburse 60,000 PKR players 100% of their final balances.[22][23]

In December 2017, PokerStars unveiled a brand new player tournament called the PokerStars Players No Limit Hold'em Championship, which is to be held in January 2019. The tournament is expected to become one of the biggest events in the annual poker calendar with a twenty-five thousand dollar buy in and a $1 million bonus for the eventual winner.[24][25]

In March 2018, The Stars Group reached an agreement with gaming company Sugal & Damani to support the launch of its PokerStars brand in India.[26]

In September 2018, PokerStars revealed PokerStars VR, a fully immersive virtual reality poker experience.[27]

In 2019, PokerStars agreed with Paddy Power Betfair to create the world's largest gambling and betting companies.[28]

PokerStars offers a large number of poker variations: Texas hold 'em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo (8 or Better), Courchevel, Stud, Stud Hi/Lo (8 or Better), Razz, Five-card draw, 2-7 Triple Draw & 2-7 Single Draw, Badugi, HORSE, HOSE, Mixed Hold'em, Mixed Omaha Hi/Lo, Triple Stud and 8-Game Mix. PokerStars also offers "Mixed Games," which rotate through several of these games.[29]

PokerStars averages over 15,000 players playing real money cash games daily.[30]

PokerStars launched Zoom Poker in March 2012, with an official launch in May 2012. Zoom Poker is a fast fold ring game poker format where opponents change after every hand. The aim of Zoom poker is to offer players more hands of poker than in a regular ring game.[31] In January 2013 PokerStars rolled out Zoom Poker Tournaments due to popular demand for the fast fold variant [32]

The site's weekly Sunday Million tournament has a guaranteed $1 million prize pool and a $215 buy-in. The Sunday Million is the biggest weekly online poker tournament. On March 7, 2011, The 5th Anniversary Sunday Million broke records, with 59,128 players creating a total prize pool of $11,825,600.[33]

World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) has been running since 2002 and is regarded as the online equivalent of the World Series of Poker. The WCOOP tournament series is the largest online poker series and pays out the largest prizes in online poker. The WCOOP 2010 Main Event champion Tyson “POTTERPOKER” Marks won $2.2 Million, the largest online tournament prize in history.[34]

Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) was established in 2009 and has since become the most popular online tournament series.[35] Unlike WCOOP, there are three different buy-in stakes in the SCOOP events: Low, Medium (10x Low stake) and High (100x Low stake).

Micro Millions was launched in March 2012 as a tournament series designed for recreational and micro-stakes players offering a low buy-in tournament schedule and large guaranteed cash prizes. PokerStars guaranteed $5 million in prize pools for the second installment of MicroMillions.[36]

In 2014 PokerStars was hosting 500,000 online tournaments each day.[37]

PokerStars sponsors various live poker tours such as the European Poker Tour (EPT), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT), UK and Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT), Estrellas Poker Tour (ESPT), Eureka Poker Tour, Italian Poker Tour (IPT), Czech-Slovak Poker Tour (CSPT), Australia & New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT), France Poker Series (FPS), Belgian Poker Series (BPS), Russian Poker Series (RPS) and Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP).

PokerStars also sponsors the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA). Since it started in 2004 the PCA has grown into the biggest poker event outside of Las Vegas.[38]

Concerning the APPT events, Stanley Choi has acquired the right to operate land-based live events and poker rooms under the branding of PokerStars.[39] This agreement covers most of the Asian countries except Philippines.

Pokerstars.net is a company website offering only free play games. The pokerstars.net domain is used primarily in their TV advertisements since there are no real money games available at this website. This avoids any legal issues or censorship of using their pokerstars.com domain which allows real money games.

PokerStars.tv is the online source for PokerStars TV shows, commercials and event highlight shows – with commentary and expert analysis available in up to 7 languages. The content available includes live cards-up coverage of the biggest PokerStars tournaments, TV shows such as The Million Dollar Challenge and PokerStars Big Game and online tournament highlights from WCOOP and SCOOP.

PokerStars sponsors a team of professional players known as Team PokerStars Pro. The team includes Chris Moneymaker, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Liv Boeree, Jake Cody, Andre Akkari, Leo Fernandez, Lex Veldhuis, Jason Somerville, Kevin Martin.[40]

Former Brazil striker Ronaldo pictured with PokerStars in 2014

PokerStars also has had a Celebrity team and a Sports team, called respectively "Friends of PokerStars" and "SportStars". These have included Jamaican Olympic gold medal winner and World record holder Usain Bolt and American actor / comedian Kevin Hart.[41] Former associated celebrities include World Cup winning Brazilian striker Ronaldo,[42] tennis pro Rafael Nadal,[43] former tennis champion Boris Becker, FIFA World Cup-winning Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, Juventus star Cristiano Ronaldo, Dutch field hockey Olympic Gold medalist Fatima Moreira de Melo, Norwegian cross-country skier Petter Northug, Swedish cross-country skier Marcus Hellner, quantitative analyst and author of the 'Chen Formula' for Texas Hold'em Bill Chen,[44] Brazilian auto racer and race team owner Gualter Salles and French rugby union international Sébastien Chabal.

PokerStars.com and PokerStars.eu operate worldwide under licenses from the Isle of Man and Malta governments, respectively. PokerStars also operates under separate government licenses in Denmark, France, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Estonia.[45] In October 2008, PokerStars launched PokerStars.it, exclusively for Italian players, which offers real money tournaments in euros in addition to the usual play money games. PokerStars offers some ring games and tournaments on its main PokerStars.com site in euros. In March 2010, the site began allowing users to keep their real-money accounts in British pounds and Canadian dollars as well as U.S. dollars and euros.

In March 2016, PokerStars launch in New Jersey for real money.[46][47]

In June 2016 PokerStars ceased to allow real-money online poker in Israel. The decision is thought to have been made after recent pressure from the country's banking regulator on financial institutions demanding they stop processing online gambling transactions.[48]

In July 2016 PokerStars stopped offering real money games to players who are physically located in, or have a registered address in, Slovenia.[49]

In July 2015 PokerStars withdrew from the Portuguese market. In November 2016 the Portuguese regulator, Serviços de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (SRIJ) issued its first online poker license to The Stars Group's subsidiary REEL Europe Limited. As a result, legal online poker returned to Portugal.[50]

In November 2018, PokerStars was cleared to launch in Pennsylvania for real money in 2019.[51]

United States Department of Justice website seizure notice. Online poker was suspended on April 15 at the top three United States poker websites (PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Cereus Poker Network).

On April 15, 2011, the Department of Justice seized the .com internet addresses of the three online gambling sites,[52] a total of five URLs: Pokerstars.com, Fulltiltpoker.com, Absolutepoker.com, Ultimatebet.com and UB.com.

On April 15, 2011, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York seized and shut down Pokerstars.com and several of its competitors' sites, alleging that the sites were violating federal bank fraud and money laundering laws.[53] On April 20, 2011, the U.S. Attorney's office returned control of the Pokerstars.com domain name to the company in order "to facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. players’ funds held in account with the companies."[54]

On July 10, 2012, PokerStars, asserting the Government had insufficient grounds on which to base the charges, filed motions to dismiss the charges against them.[55]

On July 31, 2012, the US government dismissed with prejudice all civil complaints against PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker after reaching a settlement with PokerStars which includes PokerStars purchasing Full Tilt.[15] Under the terms of the settlement, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker admitted no wrongdoing for their past U.S. activities. The U.S. Government acknowledged both companies can apply for licenses to operate online gaming in the U.S. when a legal framework for such licenses is offered.[56] The settlement terms also called for PokerStars to acquire certain assets of Full Tilt Poker from the Government.

On August 9, 2012, PokerStars paid $225 million to the U.S. Department of Justice, consummating the asset transfer of Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt Poker was successfully relaunched on November 6, 2012.[57]

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