On Thursday, Amaya Gaming purchased the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, the Rational Group, for $4.9 billion. The deal is expected to close in September and will make Amaya the largest publicly held internet gambling company on the face of the Earth. The question many players have been wondering is how fast we can expect to see PokerStarsand/or Full Tilt Poker reenter a regulated market in the US.

According to longtime industry insider Joe Brennan, don’t expect to see PokerStars back in the US immediately. Brennan told PocketFives on Friday, “This transaction, if it goes through, doesn’t automatically bring PokerStars back to the US. The deal is likely to draw huge regulatory scrutiny and there’s no doubt that Stars’ foes – like Caesars – will double down on their efforts to have ‘bad actor’ clauses included and broadened in any US iGaming legislation.”

Amaya could face quite a hurdle in California, for example, where “intellectual property such as brands and software connected to online bets taken from the US market after December 31, 2006” are subject to “bad actor” ramifications, according to Online Poker Report. In New Jersey, Amaya is licensed and several internet gambling sites are up and running, so how PokerStars would ultimately break into the market, if at all, isn’t clear.

On the subject of New Jersey, eGaming Review published an article on Friday that explained, “Even if [Amaya and PokerStars] were to double the number of internet poker players in the Garden State, based on May’s revenues, total poker rake would be around $5 million. While the increase would be welcome, it’s far from being a game-changer. And what if PokerStars doesn’t grow the market, but takes share away from those operators already live and struggling to turn a profit from their online operations?”

Brennan also told PocketFives he believes “Amaya is getting PokerStars on the cheap.” He rationalized, “PokerStars has over $1 billion in revenue and $420 million in EBIDTA. The multiple they’re getting on that is extremely low. Consider that Uber, with revenue of $213 million, was just valued at $18 billion.”

Amaya purchased the Rational Group for 11x EBIDTA, which, according to eGaming Review, is “above the industry average, but still in line with the multiple paid by William Hill for Playtech’s share of the William Hill Online joint venture last year.” Therefore, in the online gambling world, 11x EBIDTA could be considered “fair” value. The deal is still subject to Amaya shareholder approval.

According to Bloomberg, PokerStars CEO Mark Scheinberg, who will exit the company after the transaction is completed, owns 75% of the Rational Group. Moreover, the same article revealed that Rational “has no debt” to speak of. Scheinberg settled with the US DOJ one year ago.

On Thursday, the Poker Players Alliance called the sale “encouraging news for millions of American players.”

We’ll continue to keep you posted on the latest.

Want the latest poker headlines and interviews? Follow PocketFives on Twitterand Like PocketFives on Facebook. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed.