Almost four years after Black Friday, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker are back in the United States after the New Jersey Division of Gaming approved Amaya to operate in the Garden State. Amaya has an agreement with Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City to provide online poker and casino offerings in New Jersey.

«We are very pleased to add New Jersey to the long list of regulated markets that have found PokerStars and Full Tilt suitable to offer real-money online gaming,» said David Baazov, Chairman and CEO of Amaya. «I want to thank the DGE for their thorough and fair review of our business. We look forward to bringing our popular brands, innovative technology, marketing prowess and world-class security and game integrity to the growing New Jersey online gaming market. We anticipate providing additional details of our launch plans in the near future.»

New Jersey gaming regulators have a long history of stringent regulatory oversight and enforcement of gaming operations. The DGE’s review of PokerStars was extremely thorough and exhaustive, including a detailed review of Amaya’s operations and technology, sworn interviews with more than 70 individuals and visits to approximately a half dozen international jurisdictions. This stringent review found PokerStars to be under strong, ethical and trusted ownership and management with Amaya, and worthy of participating in New Jersey’s regulated online gaming market.

«Since the acquisition, we have consistently delivered on our stated strategy,» said Baazov. «Today’s announcement follows the divesture of our B2B businesses for total gross proceeds of approximately US$524.8 million; the launch of casino games on PokerStars, which we estimate has one of the largest active user bases of any online casino; the refinancing of our long term debt and the reduction of our annual interest expense by approximately US$62 million. We are excited about our new product pipeline and enthusiastic that we will experience growth in existing and emerging markets in the future.»

In addition, Garry Gates announced that he will be working as Live Events Manager North America for PokerStars. The announcement sparked a wave of speculation about the return of the North American Poker Tour or when the players will be able to play but no official statement has been made yet.