Hello everyone, how have you been? Hope it’s all good wherever you are, now let’s just get to business as I am sure you have heard the news! So it is official – Amaya will merge liquidity between PokerStars and Full Tilt this spring. What was just rumors a few days ago has been confirmed with an official press release. The main reasoning is that the merger will allow Amaya’s team to put all their efforts into improving one online platform as opposed to two, thus saving on cost and giving users a better experience as a result.

The past few years haven’t exactly been kind to Full Tilt. Even though the operator has been still in profit, it has been rapidly dropping down the top positions in the poker world, so much so that it fell out of the top 10 on the most respected in the industry tracking sites.

You may remember Amaya’s bold move from 2014 acquiring PokerStars. Well they have been doing alright ever since with only 888 being a close competitor when it comes to online poker across the board. The main concern we all have of course is how will the news affect players? Well let’s have a look.

The officials from PokerStars stated in the news release that there will be „elimination of a number of roles” in the Full Tilt’s Dublin office. Bad news for employees, but for end users of the platform – not really an issue. The two giants have promised to stick to a dual brand strategy, keeping both names and sites, which I am sure will be of comfort to some loyal members of each platform. For convenience, the user accounts will be merged across, so if you had one with either of the operators, you will be able to login to the other one with the same credentials.

Another plus for players is the fact that they will automatically be granted access to a wider variety of games and tournaments. As you can imagine, prize pools will be joined too, meaning even bigger jackpots for all! Full Tilt players will be able to join the PokerStars VIP scheme. Oh and to top it all – Full Tilt members who have never deposited on PokerStars will be able to take qualify for the PokerStars first deposit bonus, worth up to $600 per player! How groovy is that, hm?

Of course, there is the other side of the coin as always – there are a growing number of comments online against the merge, saying it won’t be beneficial to players as it is a move monopolizing the market. My personal opinion is that this does actually seem like a smart and logical move for Amaya. The company has been consistently doing well and not only for investors and shareholders – players have been well taken care of with technological improvements, huge and continual promotions across platforms and great industry events. I think it is only fair to give them the benefit of a doubt and believe that this move is actually for the better and we, players and gambling fans will in fact benefit from this latest development. But let’s wait and see – only time will tell! That’s all from me, thank you all again for reading us and be back soon for more!