[polldaddy poll=8247323]Following Amaya’s acquisition of PokerStars and Full Tilt, there are speculations that the new owners will stop serving Canadian customers, which is why we decide to ask our readers, “Will PokerStars stop dealing poker to Canadians before March 2015?”
Leading the vote, 56 percent of our readers voted No and 44 percent said Yes.
PokerStars, who sponsors almost every poker tournament, has not given any sort of reason for its last-minute withdrawal from branding the Montreal Festival. However, the company gave a message through Lee Jones, head of Poker Communications. On the Two Plus Two poker forum, he wrote: Due to unforeseen circumstances, PokerStars will not be continuing its participation in the upcoming festival. However, the tournament will continue as planned, as the Playground Festival of Poker and we, of course, will honor our previous commitment to players and satellite winners. No other PokerStars services in Canada are affected.
Though Canada is a strong country for online poker, the game resides in a bit of a grey area, legally. As such, there has been some degree of worry in the poker community that PokerStars might pull out of the Canadian market at some point. Amaya Gaming is a publicly traded company and typically, publicly-traded companies are less risk averse than privately-held firms, as the public companies must answer to shareholders. Shareholders don’t want their investment to sink just because an online gaming firm decided to stand up to laws it doesn’t like, so there could be pressure on Amaya to just close off PokerStars to Canadians and be done with it.
But then, PokerStars offered a country-restricted promotion to Canadian players who make deposit free tickets to random payout tournament.
Every deposit less than $50 until October 8 will earn a ticket to a weekly Canada All-in Shootout tournament. An All-in Shootout is a special kind of tournament where ALL players are automatically put all-in on EVERY hand until there’s a winner! These fun and fast shootouts give every player an equal chance of success, regardless of their skill level or available time to play
Each Canada All-in Shootout tournament will take place at 8:00 PM EST, every Thursday from August 7 to October 9. $1,000 will be given away in each event, adding up to a total of $10k to be won during the promotion.
Any player who makes a deposit of $50 or more will also earn entry to an exclusive freeroll tournament with a $2,500 added prize pool on Sunday, October 12.
The timing of this promotion couldn’t be better. The Canada All-in Shootout promotion both celebrates the fact that the Rational Group’s new owners are Canadian and it encourages new Canadian sign ups, sets out a commitment to continue operating in the country.
