PokerStars Company Ends Pursuit Of Atlantic City Casino

The parent company to the popular PokerStars online poker site, the Rational Group, has ended their pursuit of the Atlantic Club in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Atlantic Club casino is one of eleven casinos in AC, and it was thought that the Rational Group was preparing for an entrance into the online gambling market through the purchase of the casino.

Back in January, the Texas-based company entered into an agreement in principal to purchase the Atlantic Club. The agreement would have allowed for the purchase, which in turn, would have placed the group in line to receive an online gaming license in New Jersey.

No details were given this week when the group announced that it was terminating the sales agreement for the AC casino. While the deal appears now dead, no further details have emerged, leading some to speculate the cause for the sudden deal-breaker.

“It must have something to do with PokerStars’ past in the US,” said New Jersey resident Tristan Willows. “They got into trouble, so maybe regulators didn’t want that company owning a casino in Atlantic City.”

PokerStars was once the most popular online poker site for US online gamblers. In 2011, the site made major news when executives for PokerStars, Absolute Poker, and Full Tilt Poker, were indicted for violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

PokerStars quickly settled their legal differences with the US, agreeing to pay back US customers that had funds in their PokerStars accounts at the time of the indictment. The company also agreed to forfeit hundreds of millions of dollars to the US.

Once that agreement was struck, the company was free to search for another possible entry into the US market. When laws started to change in the US in Nevada and New Jersey, it hastened the need to purchase a land-based casino in a state where online gambling had been regulated.

In January the group agreed to buy the Atlantic Club, but this week that deal fell apart.