So, I was thinking about this, and trying to understand some more of the dynamics. Help me out here.1)Pre-Black Friday I could totally see this. #1 buying #2. Buy your biggest competitor, and have dominant market share. May tick some players off that hated PS and only played on FT, but if they were US Players, where else could they have gone? Basically no where. I understand that there were others Pre-BF, but game selection would have been terrible, just like it is now for US players. I don't play much anymore b/c I really don't want to wait 1 Hour + for a $5-$10 45 man SNG to load, let alone a waiting for a 180. Basically if you were a US player that was more than a every-once-in-a-while, you were going to be eating out of the PS pie.2)Post BF - PS loses a huge chunk of business (I would love to see the real numbers/percentages here), but still has dominant market share ROW to still keep chugging along. Their #1 competitor goes belly up, which had to make PS smile. For ROW players they still have other sites to play on, and a few bigger sites, but PS I would think still has excellent position and huge market share. Maybe someone outside the US could comment here, but I would guess PS is a hands down #1 site??. Someone comes along and is trying to reopen their #1 competition. If the GBT really had enough capitol to reopen, pay ROW players back, and try to compete with PS is anyones guess. Some insiders may know if the $$$ were strong enough to do that, or have them play some kind of games to try to churn up revenue. I still think PS probably was not too worried about this.3) US Market Share - WHEN (not IF IMO) poker becomes officially legalized, regulated, and structured properly, that would be a huge market for anyone (newcomers or established) to want to get. How many millions have been spent in the past on lobbyist, etc. trying to get this done Pre-BF? Now, PS is already good in bed with Uncle Sam, seeing how they repaid and settled very fast (lightning fast considering how slow the government usually takes) with Uncle Sam. Now if the acquisition of FT by PS goes thru the DOJ that fast (I understand there are still other issues, but the elephant in the room has to be the DOJ) and US Players get repaid just like the way PS repaid its US share, then PS would have to be snuggled up really well with Uncle Sam, but why??? I mean, what assets does FT still have left that are worth $330 million? The brand will always be tied to shadiness, and after 1 year + of being shutdown, any assets that were not seized have been liquidated by now. Personally I liked the software of FT better than PS (but PS game structures were better IMO), but if PS just wanted to buy another site, could they not have already bought a smaller established site with less headache than this? I mean, could they not sneak back in on the US market and buy a company that is already on Merge? If publicized then that would have brought some US players back online, but then would have really pissed the DOJ off, and could upset the already unstable balance of US online poker. But, if they were just in it for a few $$$, this would make more sense to me.Basically, what would be the point of a non-US business being a hero to US players/voters and helping the DOJ fix a mess, if not jockeying for position on what has to be an inevitable gold mine? What company in this day and time would spend $80 mil+ on giving to a group of people that could not give back to them? (Assuming US players are paid back). I am sure there is alot more to this than alot of people know, but to me it just seems like they are trying to win over the US by looking like (if all works out as hoped, then BEING) a huge positive ambassador for the legalization of online poker in US. This move would have to make some the skeptics that think online poker is nothing more than a shady scamming business start to think otherwise. A shady game that a business runs that actually protects its customers, and goes above and beyond to take care of its customers, not once but twice?? My stock portfolio and mutual funds wish US companies would have been that kind a few years ago, and they are supposedly regulated by the US already.Anyway, just my thoughts. I could be off-base here, but open for friendly discussion.
- - - - "It annoys me when players who play the tour for three years and don't do anything chalk it up to "variance." Yeah, has nothing to do with the fact that you suck... you are just unlucky." - - - - - Daniel Negreanu 1-21-2011 Blog