The Stars Group to raise billions for acquistions?

The CEO of The Stars Group - the owner of PokerStars - talked about the plans to expand their business, focusing on casino games and sports betting.

Chief Executive Rafael Ashkenazi gave an interview to Reuters this Monday. Ashkenazi, who took the place of David Baazov's last year - after the latter was being charged with insider trading - discussed some of the future goals of the company. Last week PokerStars released its Q3 earnings report, which made it clear that the company is focusing on increasing the share of the casino and sport betting divisions in their overall revenue. They already reached an increasement of 5.2% from 23.7% of last years Q3 to 28.9% this year.

Ashkenazi believes that one of the ways to keep on expanding is to acquire online gambling sites. According to the chief executive the company could raise $2.5billion for these goals. The Stars Group (then-Amaya Gaming) has already had some talks with UK's bookmaker William Hill, regarding potential mergers last year but there was no deal made that time.

Pokerstars boss Rafael Ashkenazi

Many people believe that - having around 70% market share - PokerStars already has too big of a piece in online poker. The changes in their VIP system and rake structure made a lot of people furious, resulting protests failing to make an effect of the company's approach to the players. It seems like the time proved PokerStars so far, since their poker revenues also increased. If they can keep it that way only the future can tell.

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