BIG BREAKING news in the online poker world....

http://pokerfuse.com/news/poker-room-news/pokerstars-buys-full-tilt-settles-with-doj/

PokerStars Reaches Agreement to Buy Full Tilt, Settle with DOJ
In an surprise move, industry-leader PokerStars has reached an agreement with the US DOJ to purchase long-time rival Full Tilt Poker and settle its outstanding legal matters.
By Chris Philips
APRIL 24, 2012
pokerfu.se/b7m2


The US Legal Landscape One Year After Black Friday APRIL 15, 2012
US Department of Justice Green Lights Tapie Acquisition of Full Tilt NOVEMBER 01, 2011
New Full Tilt Limited: Tapie Funds New Irish Company APRIL 17, 2012
Laurent Tapie Expects to Finalize Full Tilt Deal in the Next 15 Days NOVEMBER 02, 2011

PokerStars has reached a settlement with the US Department of Justice, pokerfuse can reveal. Part of the deal involves the purchase of Full Tilt Poker and full repayment of all players.

The specifics of the deal are not yet known, and no statement has yet come from any parties involved.

Rumors that PokerStars has reached a deal with the DOJ to purchase Full Tilt Poker began swirling early Tuesday morning on poker forum 2+2. Sources have corroborated the story with Pokerfuse that a deal has indeed been reached but could not confirm any specific details.

Alex Dreyfus, CEO of Chili Gaming, stated on twitter that PokerStars has paid $750m to acquire Full Tilt and settle its outstanding legal issues with the DOJ. A reported $330m of that price will go to repay Full Tilt account holders with the remainder believed to be in settlement of outstanding charges against PokerStars.

Until now, French investment group Group Bernard Tapie were known to be in late-stage talks. According to sources at e-Gaming Magazine, “efforts to obtain final DoJ approval to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker have ended without success,” and that the deal was “sabbotaged,” according to iGamingFrance.

As a point of comparison, PartyGaming (now known as bwin.party) co-founder Anurag Dikshit agreed to a plea deal with the DOJ in 2008 for a total of $300m. In 2009, payment processor Neteller settled for $136m.

However, the charges facing Scheinberg are more serious. The elusive billionaire, along with an otherwise unknown Isle of Man resident Paul Tate, are charged under violation of the UIGEA, operation of an illegal gambling business, and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

According to the unconfirmed reports on 2+2, PokerStars plans to bring Full Tilt Poker back online, and maintain separate sites.

BY CHRIS PHILIPS

very interesting.....

I am not sure I understand PokerStars reasoning.... Maybe no prosecution if they bail out Full Tilt?? Otherwise, I cannot imagine it gives them many more customers that they didn't have access to before... I cannot wait until more comes out..

BUT GREAT NEWS FOR THE FULLTILT PEOPLE!

Pokerstars must be still doing well overseas

I was hoping the news was that there was progress on legalizing it in the US....

all of this is tied together. pokerstars isnt ponying up this kind of money just to be nice to the americans and doj. its still going to take some time for it to get regulated but this is a big big 1st step. not only for players getting paid back but could also be a springboard in getting PSorFTP back in the us market when it is legalized and regulated.

http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/corpo...ars-statement-regarding-settlemen-093438.html

Corporate Blog
by Eric Hollreiser on April 24, 2012 12:39 PM
We've had a lot of enquiries and there's lots of speculation on the forums, so I wanted to address the PokerStars chatter. As you know, PokerStars is in settlement discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice. As such settlement discussions are always confidential, we are unable to comment on rumors. As soon as we have information to share publicly we will do so.

this is a payoff so Stars can enter the market when they get it legal here

Take out their competition one by one and have the monopoly in the US. It also gets them the EURO deposit money left on Tilt which will revitalize some dead dormant accounts on Stars.

TheRightSide said:

this is a payoff so Stars can enter the market when they get it legal here

Click to expand...

I sure cant see any other reason they would do this. Buy a companies 100's of million in debt for no good reason i can think of except to assume the millions in debt. Its weird....
They dont need the software, they already have all the players, their is no infrastructure to speak of. What exactly are they buying??

TheRightSide said:

this is a payoff so Stars can enter the market when they get it legal here

Click to expand...

This
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