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News this week that Full Tilt Poker has opted not to renew the contracts of big name pros Gus Hansen and Viktor Blum may provide a glimpse of the future for FTP and its sister site PokerStars.com.
Full Tilt and Stars must now yield to investors following the recent acquisition by publicly traded Amaya Gaming. What the investors want might not necessarily be what the poker community wants.
Privately held Americas Cardroom sees this as a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on the void left behind.
“All these things seem pretty standard when a company changes hands in this fashion,” Americas Cardroom CEO Phil Nagy told Gambling911.com following the news of Blom and Hansen’s departures. “They did spend 4.9 billion and they are going to look to get that back somehow probably like this.”
Nagy points to a laundry list of abrupt moves Amaya has made in recent weeks.
“They cut costs by eliminating team pros, opting out on sponsorship deals in Canada, restructuring their bonus program and I’m sure there is plenty more coming,” Nagy predicts.
He also points to how Amaya is attempting to raise profits by testing a casino in Spain while dropping the so-called “high risk grey markets”.
“What this means is Amaya will make loads of money but at what cost?”, Nagy asks. “Poker will never be the same.”
- Patrick Flanagan, Gambling911.com
