Posts Tagged ‘Atlantic Club Casino’

PokerStars wants to build $10 Million Poker Room in Atlantic City

Friday, October 4th, 2013

PokerStars isn’t giving up on Atlantic City yet. Just months after their failed deal with the Atlantic Club Casino, PokerStars’ parent company, The Rational Group, is seeking to build a $10 million poker room in the East Coast gambling hub.

The $10 million complex would be housed in Resorts Casino Hotel, which hasn’t had a poker room since 2010. Resorts spokesman William J. Pascrell III discussed The Rational Group’s plans for his casino through the following statement:

As soon as the license is in hand, they’re ready to start building. It will be the PokerStars poker room at Resorts. PokerStars is committed to investing significant resources to put in a brand new poker room at Resorts Casino Hotel. In addition to the poker room, they are committed to driving traffic to Atlantic City through their marketing.

Of course, obtaining licensing anywhere in the US has been a chore for PokerStars from day 1. The big reason why The Rational Group lost out on buying the Atlantic Club is because they couldn’t get the state of New Jersey to approve them before a set date. This allowed the Atlantic Club to walk, as per their contract, leaving Stars with millions of dollars in lost money.

It’s a good bet that Stars has learned their lesson this time around, and they likely have a rock-solid contract with Resorts Casino. Assuming The Rational Group gains approval to build their $10 million poker room, it’ll give them a headquarters in the United States.

More importantly, it will put PokerStars in line to serve the ballyhooed US online poker market. Many companies are clamoring to get into New Jersey’s legalized online poker market, which launched on November 26th. And any company that gets in now will have access to multi-state pacts that New Jersey makes with other states. Of course, Stars is mainly focused on accomplishing the first thing: getting a license for their live poker room.

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PokerStars partners with Resorts Casino to offer New Jersey Online Poker

Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013

PokerStars is hoping to enter the US online poker world again after striking a deal with Resorts Casino Hotel. The two companies have submitted an application to New Jersey so that they can run an online poker site in this newly legalized market.

“This is another blue chip partner for Resorts to complete a wonderful series of brands – Mohegan Sun, Margaritaville and now PokerStars,” said Resorts’ CEO Morris Bailey. Just last month, Resorts Casino Hotel welcomed the Margaritaville franchise, so the PokerStars deal is just another huge milestone for them.

This has definitely got to be sweet for Stars as well because they’ve got a very realistic chance of entering the US online gaming market. “Resorts is a fantastic partner for us and we are looking forward to launch PokerStars in the U.S. in association with the other quality brands Resorts has brought to Atlantic City,” said Mark Scheinberg, PokerStars’ CEO. “We are very happy to invest in New Jersey and we are excited about building a successful relationship with Resorts.”

Several month ago, The Rational Group, which owns PokerStars, thought they already had a deal worked out the Atlantic Club Casino in regard to entering New Jersey. However, this fell through when Stars couldn’t obtain a New Jersey gaming license on their own.

The Atlantic Club then backed out of the deal, despite The Rational Group dumping $11 million into the struggling casino. Rational then filed a lawsuit against the Atlantic Club to block them from selling to another company. This lawsuit was then rejected on grounds that the contract stipulated Atlantic Club could walk away from the deal if Stars failed to get licensed.

PokerStars may not be getting their own casino from which they can launch an online poker site. However, they’ll at least have a good chance to enter the US again thanks to Resorts Casino.

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Atlantic Club successfully backs out of PokerStars Deal

Sunday, May 19th, 2013

For the past few weeks, the Rational Group (PokerStars’ owner) and Colony Capital LLC (owns Atlantic Club Casino) have been at war over a business deal. The Rational Group was set to buy the Atlantic Club for $15 million, but they failed to obtain a New Jersey casino license by April 26th, 2013.

What’s significant about this date is that Rational needed to obtain a license by then or the original agreement was altered. Furthermore, the purchase contract stated that Colony Capital could back out of the deal if PokerStars failed to get a license by the 26th. Because Rational failed to meet this clause, a New Jersey Superior Court judge recently ruled that Atlantic Club could terminate their pending deal with PokerStars. Plus they can sell to any company they wish to now.

What made this situation particularly complicated is how Rational dumped $11 million into Atlantic Club to keep it operational. The casino was on the verge of bankruptcy when PokerStars entered the picture and needed money to continue operations. Because they spent so much on Atlantic Club, Rational argued that they’d already met most of the $15 million purchase agreement. But as unethical as it may seem, Colony Capital was able to back out simply because the contract stated they could.

Popular speculation is that Atlantic Club owners didn’t fully realize how much more valuable their property was until partway through the selling process. Because only casino operators can get an online gaming license in New Jersey, the Atlantic Club is probably worth far more than $15 million. So by getting out of a deal with Stars, Colony Club can now seek a more lucrative deal. Of course, this all hinges upon Atlantic Club’s ability to stay open until they find a new suitor.

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PokerStars to open World’s Biggest Branded Poker Room in Macau

Friday, February 22nd, 2013

Over the past few months, PokerStars has been making some major forays into the land-based gaming world. First, they worked out a deal to buy the Atlantic Club Casino in Atlantic City; then they announced plans to build a branded poker room in London. And now Stars has announced that they’ll build the world’s largest branded poker room in Macau.

The room will be built at the City of Dreams Casino, which is located on the world-famous Cotai Strip. “PokerStars Live at the City of Dreams” will offer cash games, daily tournaments and 13 permanent poker tables. The venue will be spacious enough to add extra tables when needed and host major events like the Asia Championship of Poker, Macau Poker Cup series, Macau Millions and the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour Macau.

Danny McDonagh, who’s the PokerStars Director of Live Operations for Asia-Pacific, discussed the new poker room by stating:

The PokerStars online brand drives more traffic to live poker events than any other. Players know that PokerStars is synonymous with integrity and high quality. That makes this collaboration a natural fit because City of Dreams has been at the forefront in providing the most innovative and premium gaming experience that is second to none in Macau.

Macau is already one of the world’s biggest destinations for live poker games. And now that PokerStars will be building a branded room at the City of Dreams, the Macau poker scene only figures to get bigger.

Some of the famous poker pros who commonly travel to Macau include Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, John Juana and Andrew Robl. Combine these action-hungry players with the Asian businessmen who regularly play in these high stakes games, and you can see why Macau features some of the biggest pots in the world.

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