Miikka Anttonen, a young Finnish poker player, told Card Player that PokerStars’ acquisition of Full Tilt Poker is great for players at a special interview series in which poker players are given a chance to voice their opinions about the takeover.
Expressing his opinion that unlocking poker deposits locked up for months within the fallen online poker giant will revive poker economy in a big way, he said that it will be interesting to see how the acquisition affects the poker industry in general. He said,
I’m afraid it won’t be all just good things since PokerStars will now have a ridiculous market share and they can do pretty much anything they want with rake etc.
However, he admitted to feeling great personally because he will finally be able to retrieve his online poker funds. He also said that the acquisition might speed up the legalization and regulation of US online poker, which will be excellent for the poker economy. He said, “Basically I don’t think it’s a big deal apart from people getting their money back, but might be the start of a new boom if the U.S. authorities and PokerStars/FTP play their cards well.”
Voicing his opinion that Full Tilt Poker will continue with its old brand feature, he said that even PokerStars will want to retain Full Tilt Poker’s reputation as a number one cash game site while retaining its own position as the number one tournament site. He predicted that the focus will be on large cash games at Full Tilt Poker, adding that that “they will end up having the biggest cash game tables, and it will become the railbird heaven it once was.”
He also expressed his interest in seeing how they would deal with Full Tilt Poker’s past. Stating that many players, including himself, can think of FTP as a brand new site because the only old things about it would be its software and name, he said that many players will find it difficult to trust Full Tilt Poker again. Elaborating on this issue, he said,
I think it’s going to be a massive decision whether they will include PokerStars in the name/branding or not. If they do, their site will instantly gain trusted status among random players. But then again it will be considered as PokerStars 2, which isn’t good for them since it’s harder to get people to play on both.
