The future is bright for Amaya Gaming, and the present is equally great! If you wonder why we are talking about Amaya’s fortunes, the Canada-headquartered group has recently acquired The Rational Group at a whopping $4.9 billion, sending shockwaves across the world of online gaming. The Rational Group is the operator and owner of Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. The transaction makes Amaya the largest online public traded company across the world
What’s more, Amaya’s revenues for the a three-month timeframe till June 30, 2014 went up 14 per cent y-o-y, from $37.3 m to $42.5 m in the same period last year.
Story of Amaya’s growth
Amaya Gaming was established way back in 2004 to offer tech solutions to both offline and online casinos. For years after the group was set up, Amaya barely had any kind of influence on the online gambling world. The company got a great lease of life in 2011, when they acquired Chartwell Technology. Then came a deal with Australian gaming supplier Aristocrat Technologies, which was a well-known name that had supplied casinos to every part of the world. However, the big acquisition and change in fortunes came when Amaya bought Cryptologic for nearly $36 million. Ever since, Amaya has become one of the major players in the world of gaming, and not just online casinos. The acquisition of The Rational Group has come as a cherry on top of the long list of the group’s successes.
In terms of gaming, Amaya has over 300 online games to offer. They have a range of other services including turnkey and customer management solutions.
Fresh forecast
Following the acquisition of the Full Tilt and PokerStars brands operated by The Rational Group, the revenue for the rest of 2014 is expected to triple, the forecast in the range of $669 m – $715 m, instead of the earlier guidance of $193 m-$203 m. Amaya CEO David Baazov is excited by the acquisition and points out that the acquisition brings in an additional 86 million customers. The group hopes to make inroads into Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Meanwhile, the acquisition has breathed a fresh lease of life into talks about PokerStars’ return to the US market, but the nature of that return and whether it happens is vague.