In a half-hour conference call held on Friday, one day after Amaya Gaming purchased PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, Amaya executives previewed what’s to come for players on the largest and fifth largest online poker sites in the world. While no management changes are expected, it appears that a host of software modifications could be in store.

A summary of the callappeared on PokerNews’ website, which quoted Amaya CEO David Baazov as saying in part, “We intend to support the company growth in real money online casino, sports betting, and social gaming.” Currently, PokerStars is poker-only, while Full Tilt recently launched casino gaming. The current product offering, according to PokerNews, means there are “great possibilities for future growth.”

A “fully-featured casino client” is supposedly in the works for later this year and, speaking on the strengths of PokerStars and Full Tilt, Baazov said, “[Rational’s] companies do not only have the ability to attract new players, but they are also able to offer popular tables and slot games to their millions of players using their poker platforms.”

Sports betting and social gaming appear to be focal points for Amaya going forward with its newly acquired brands. Baazov, according to PokerNews, relayed, “We estimate we can become a strong operator in the [sports betting] market in a few years, keeping the existing online poker players from spending their dollars on other sports book operators… We anticipate social gaming will be an important growth opportunity for the company [since] Rational already has a huge database of play money poker players.”

In the press release announcing Amaya’s acquisition of PokerStars’ and Full Tilt’s parent company, the Rational Group, no changes were anticipated from a player perspective: “Online poker services provided by PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker will be unaffected by the transaction, with players continuing to enjoy uninterrupted access to their gaming experience.” The deal is expected to close in September and is still subject to Amaya shareholder approval.

The Rational Group’s brands have over 85 million combined players, so there are plenty of people who will be affected. PocketFives Elite poster wackyJaxonis one of them, posting in a thread in the Poker Sites forum, “Since PokerStars is the biggest site we have right now, I wouldn’t want to see any moves toward a different model with the new ownership… I don’t see any positives with this for ROW players and see potential negatives. I am curious how they handle owning three networks (PokerStars, FTP, and Ongame) and where this goes.”

We’ll keep you posted on the latest right here on PocketFives.

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