PokerStars News

PokerStars was the largest online poker site in the world from the height of the poker boom until about 2022, when it was overtaken by GGPoker.

Founded as a private company by Isai Scheinberg, it was one of the big three sites that continued to serve American players after the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act of 2006. Unlike its rivals Full Tilt and Ultimate Bet, however, it emerged relatively unscathed from the “Black Friday” crackdown of 2011, thanks to having kept its customer balances separate from operating capital. That allowed it to reimburse affected American players and generate considerable goodwill by buying out Full Tilt and repaying its players as well.

However, in 2014, it went public through a reverse merger with the much smaller Canadian company, Amaya, and parted ways with Scheinberg and the rest of its original leadership team. Doing so was necessary for the brand to persuade U.S. regulators to issue it a license, now that legal operations were a possibility. However, Amaya leadership introduced a number of cost-cutting measures that proved hugely unpopular with players, including the abrupt cancellation of the Supernova rewards program.

Amaya subsequently acquired Sky Betting and Gaming and changed its name to The Stars Group, before being acquired in turn by Flutter. 

In the Flutter era, PokerStars has pivoted its attention away from the US market and back to its global site, while Flutter focuses its US efforts on FanDuel. Among regulated US operators, PokerStars is the only one not to have taken the opportunity to add Pennsylvania to its multistate network, and its market share has suffered dramatically as a result.

Aside from online poker, PokerStars has built a presence in retail poker as a tournament series operator through the European Poker Tour and, more recently, the PokerStars Open.