PokerStars Adds Casino Games To Its Spain-only Site

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Monday, October 6th, 2014 | Written by Adam Brown

PokerStars, the world’s most popular poker site, has just reversed more than ten years of policy and introduced casino games to its previously poker-only online offering. For now the move is restricted to its PokerStars.es platform, where the company received a license to offer blackjack and roulette back in July, but the development is likely to establish a pattern for offering casino games to its other “dot com” sites in the future.

As recently as March this year, The Rational Group, former owners of both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, had already introduced casino games to its Full Tilt website, but insisted PokerStars was going to remain a poker only operation “untainted” by casino gambling. At the time, PokerStars Director of Poker Room Operations Steve Day even took to the Two Plus Two forum to make the site’s policy clear, stating:

“There are no plans at this time for casino games in the PokerStars client. I suppose you can never say never, but right now ‘We are Poker’ and nothing else.”

Amaya Gaming reverses PokerStars policy

Nevertheless, after Amaya Gaming bought The Rational Group in June for $4.9 billion, the Canadian gambling company announced casino games was also going to be a priority for PokerStars, overturning more than a decade of policy in which PokerStars had built an excellent reputation promoting poker as a ‘game of skill’ separate to that of other gambling games.

Amaya Gaming’s acquisition subsequently signaled a major change in direction for PokerStars, as the company sought to expand its potential revenues beyond an online poker market worth around $4 billion each year worldwide, to also include the casino games market ($25 billion), and sports betting market ($17 billion). As Amaya GamingCEO David Baazov, explained at the time:

“The focus is to grow the sector. The exciting part of this company [Rational Group Ltd] is that it comes with 86 million customers. Not 86 million gamblers specifically; 86 million customers.”

Casino games “best way to serve players”

On September 30th, PokerStars.es began offering blackjack and roulette games at varying stakes under the “Casino” tab option for those players using the site’s PokerStars 7 client. While having just poker games available was once comforting for poker players keen not to be distracted by potentially bankroll destroying casino games, the nemesis of many a poker professional, PokerStars apparently noticed a number of its customers had been spending some of their gambling budgets on casino games hosted at rival sites.

The decision was therefore taken to launch casino games in Spain, which is also seen as an effective way of protecting its position as the country’s online poker market leader with around 70% of cash game traffic, reported at 1,100 players over a seven-day period according to PokerScout. Commenting on the move, Gino Appiotti, PokerStars President for Southern Europe, explains:

“We know that many of our customers are enjoying online casino games on competing platforms and our offering will enhance their experience with PokerStars an provide a safe, trusted and convenient way for them to be entertained.”

Italy and other jurisdictions may soon follow

PokerStars is also the dominant poker site in the Italian market with a seven-day average of 1,300 cash game players, and industry analysts are already speculating that casino games may soon be added to PokerStars.it, too. A major factor in PokerStars’ decision is whether Full Tilt Poker has a presence in the particular markets being considered, and if not then PokerStars is seen as the next best choice.

In the future, a similar situation is expected to play out in New Jersey, where Amaya Gaming is currently working with regulators to bring PokerStars back to the US state’s regulated online gambling market. The developments taking place within the PokerStars brand are part of the “wider rollout” expected to take place in 2015, as the company seeks to expand into more regulated markets across the world. Commenting on the site’s recent makeover, Amaya CEO David Baazov, said:

“Both Amaya and Rational Group support the regulation of online poker and gaming, and are committed to working with regulators to create responsible and tax-efficient means to regulate within their jurisdictions. We believe there are important benefits from regulating online gaming operations [including] protecting consumer funds, ensuring game integrity, combating collusion fraud and money laundering, and ensuring responsible gaming processes are in place.”