Amaya focused on expanding its sportsbook
PokerStars parent company is seeking to improve its 2016 growth in other areas like its sports betting and casino businesses.
Canada.- Amaya Inc. is famous for operating the largest online poker platform in the world, PokerStars, but is now aiming towards an improvement of its other divisions. The company wants to take advantage of its revenue growth during 2016’s fourth quarter of which 25.8 percent corresponded to casino and sportsbooks revenue as those related to poker decreased.
Amaya has noted these sectors potential and have hired Robin Chhabra in order to give them a boost. William Hill group director of strategy and corporate development will lead merger and acquisition endeavors on a sportsbook deal.
BetStars, company’s sports betting division is set in “investment mode” according to Amaya described in its earnings presentation. Even though Vice President of Corporate Communications, Eric Hollreiser, said that they “don’t really consider it to be a truly competitive sportsbook right now” but they are doing the neessary moves “to make sure it becomes that.” He also said that, despite Amaya’s focus on sportsbook’s expansion, “it would be premature to give up on the growth of poker, especially within the United States.”
The company is also confident that the prohibition on sports betting within US borders, outside Nevada, is lifted. The Raiders, former Oakland’s NFL team, relocation to Las Vegas is seen among industry operators as a step in the right direction, next to MLB commissioner discussing with owners about how regulation should be changed.
Accordign to Hollreiser, Amaya is “active in lobbying both at the federal and state level” in order to alter online gambling laws. Online gambling has been banned nationwide since 2006 by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). BetStars parent company favors the creation of a federal law that would change it but isn’t putting money into it: “It would obviously be the best solution in our mind, because it’s straightforward and clean, but at this time I just don’t see that,” the executive explained.
