Pokerstars, the world’s biggest poker site, announced a few months back that they would be integrating sportsbook for their players to enjoy, but didn’t specify when it was coming. This has been specified a bit more now, as Amaya Gaming who owns them sent out a press release stating that it would be launched in Q1 this year.
This means that within the next couple of months, Pokerstars will also begin operating on the $25 billion estimated value sportsbetting market and officially offer the three biggest iGaming markets, Poker, Casino and Betting.
The sportsbook will be integrated to a few .com markets only to start with, with the rest of both the regulated and unregulated markets following not long after. Players will have the option to remove the sportsbook from their software so they don’t get tempted to bet or annoyed by the fact that a site who has been loved in the past for only serving poker now serves markets which will most likely hurt the overall poker industry.
Pokerstars also announced that they will begin some aggressive marketing campaigns for their casino and sportsbetting games, to attract non-poker players to their site and gain market shares that way through. It is however expected that a decent percentage of the player base will be using Pokerstars as their new home for betting and casino.