Amaya Gaming Group has agreed to buy the parent company of Rational Group, owner and operator of PokerStars and Full-Tilt poker, in a $4.9 billion all-cash transaction that would make Amaya the world’s biggest publicly held online poker company.
The deal, announced last Thursday, is aimed at allowing PokerStars and FullTilt Poker to resume operations in the United States. Both PokerStars and FullTilt were suspended after the federal government charged them and a third online poker operator with fraud and money laundering in 2011, resulting in a $731 million civil forfeiture settlement in 2012.
