founder isai scheinberg and mark scheinberg headquarters isle of man area served worldwide owner amaya inc. website pokerstars.com screenshot of the pokerstars gui the classic theme at a real money table pokerstars is the largest online poker cardroom in the world ; 1 it can be accessed through downloadable poker clients for the windows and macintosh operating systems . a pokerstars.com online satellite tournament produced the 2003 world series of poker wsop 2 champion chris moneymaker . as the first person to become a world champion by qualifying at an online poker site 3 moneymaker s 2003 win was an important factor in catalyzing the poker boom of the mid 2000s . the press has called this the moneymaker effect . 4 in january 2012 pokerstars introduced a downloadable mobile client for ios from itunes . in february 2012 the company also introduced a client for android . 5 on july 31 2012 pokerstars bought its former competitor full tilt poker . 6 the 731 million deal settled a civil lawsuit with the department of justice while giving ownership of full tilt poker s assets to pokerstars . 7 on june 12 2014 amaya gaming group agreed to buy pokerstars and its parent company for 4.9 billion in cash . 8 9 the deal was completed on august 1 2014 . 10 contents 1 history 2 games offered 2.1 zoom poker 3 online tournaments 4 live poker tours 5 pokerstars.net 6 pokerstars.tv 7 team pokerstars pro 8 celebrity players 9 regulated markets 10 domain name seizure 11 notes 12 external links history edit pokerstars launched its beta play money only site on september 11 2001 . the company began offering real money wagering on december 12 2001 . pokerstars was originally a costa rican company rational enterprises which was majority owned by the israeli scheinberg family . 11 12 the company was subsequently moved to the isle of man a british crown dependency . the move was driven by the establishment of a 0 % corporate tax rate and the removal of rules barring companies from accepting casino and poker bets from the united states of america . 11 pokerstars holds its licence with the isle of man gambling supervision commission and also holds government licences in denmark france belgium italy 13 estonia and spain . on february 10 2012 pokerstars acquired a european union license granted by the malta lotteries and gaming commission . 14 while privately owned pokerstars had been the subject of financial media speculation regarding a possible initial public offering or merger with a publicly listed company . analysts estimated its market value would have been approximately 2 billion us in 2006 which would have made the company one of the world s largest privately held gambling companies . 12 pokerstars overtook partypoker as the world s largest online poker room at after the u.s. congress passed the unlawful internet gambling enforcement act of 2006 . many sites including partypoker immediately suspended business with u.s. gamblers while others including pokerstars did not . 15 on december 27 2009 pokerstars set the world record for the biggest online tournament . the tournament entry fee was 1 and the number of entrants reached 149 196 . 16 they broke that record on december 4 2011 when 200 000 players played in a 1 buy in tournament with a first prize of 50 000 . 17 pokerstars was so busy during the early stages of the tournament all tournaments had to be stopped for 20 minutes because the heavy traffic crashed their servers . this record had been broken again at june 16 2013 with 225 000 participants . the buy in was 1 and went completely into the prizepool with no rake . as of april 6 2016 they have reached an agreement with netent to add desktop and mobile gambling games to its poker lobby in new jersey and other locations . 18 games offered edit pokerstars offers a large number of poker variations texas hold em omaha omaha hi lo 8 or better courchevel stud stud hi lo 8 or better razz five card draw 2 7 triple draw & 2 7 single draw badugi horse hose mixed hold em mixed omaha hi lo triple stud and 8 game mix . pokerstars also offers mixed games which rotate through several of these games . 19 pokerstars averages over 15 000 players playing real money cash games daily . 20 zoom poker edit pokerstars launched a beta of zoom poker in march 2012 with an official launch in may 2012 . zoom poker is a fast fold ring game poker format where opponents change after every hand . the aim of zoom poker is to offer players more hands of poker than in a regular ring game . 21 in january 2013 pokerstars rolled out zoom poker tournaments due to popular demand for the fast fold variant 22 online tournaments edit the site s weekly sunday million tournament has a guaranteed 1 million prize pool and a 215 buy in . the sunday million is the biggest weekly online poker tournament . on march 7 2011 the 5th anniversary sunday million broke records with 59 128 players creating a total prize pool of 11 825 600 . 23 world championship of online poker wcoop has been running since 2002 and is regarded by whom as the online equivalent of the world series of poker . the wcoop tournament series is the largest online poker series and pays out the largest prizes in online poker . the wcoop 2010 main event champion tyson potterpoker marks won 2.2 million the largest online tournament prize in history . 24 spring championship of online poker scoop was established in 2009 and has since become the most popular online tournament series . 25 unlike wcoop there are three different buy in stakes in the scoop events low medium 10x low stake and high 100x low stake . micro millions was launched in march 2012 as a tournament series designed for recreational and micro stakes players offering a low buy in tournament schedule and large guaranteed cash prizes . pokerstars guaranteed 5 million in prize pools for the second installment of micromillions . 26 live poker tours edit pokerstars sponsors various live poker tours such as the european poker tour ept asia pacific poker tour appt latin american poker tour lapt uk and ireland poker tour ukipt estrellas poker tour espt eureka poker tour italian poker tour ipt czech slovak poker tour cspt australia & new zealand poker tour anzpt france poker series fps belgian poker series bps russian poker series rps and brazilian series of poker bsop . pokerstars also sponsors the pokerstars caribbean adventure pca . since it started in 2004 the pca has grown into the biggest poker event outside of las vegas . 27 pokerstars.net edit pokerstars.net is a company website offering free play but no real money games . pokerstars.tv edit pokerstars.tv is the online source for pokerstars tv shows commercials and event highlight shows with commentary and expert analysis available in up to 7 languages . the content available includes live cards up coverage of the biggest pokerstars tournaments tv shows such as the million dollar challenge and pokerstars big game and online tournament highlights from wcoop and scoop . team pokerstars pro edit pokerstars sponsors a team of professional players known as team pokerstars pro . the team includes chris moneymaker daniel negreanu liv boeree jake cody bertrand grospellier barry greenstein jason mercier vanessa selbst luca pagano victor ramdin andre akkari eugene katchalov johnny lodden leo fernandez ivan demidov theo j rgensen lex veldhuis dag palovic jason somerville jaime staples randy lew . 28 celebrity players edit pokerstars also has a celebrity team and a sports team called respectively friends of pokerstars and sportstars . these include tennis pro rafael nadal 29 former tennis champion boris becker fifa world cup winning italian goalkeeper gianluigi buffon real madrid star cristiano ronaldo 30 dutch field hockey olympic gold medalist fatima moreira de melo norwegian cross country skier petter northug swedish cross country skier marcus hellner quantitative analyst and author of the chen formula for texas hold em bill chen 31 brazilian auto racer and race team owner gualter salles and french rugby union international s bastien chabal . regulated markets edit pokerstars.com and pokerstars.eu operate worldwide under licenses from the isle of man and malta governments respectively . pokerstars also operates under separate government licenses in denmark france italy belgium spain and estonia . 32 in october 2008 pokerstars launched pokerstars.it exclusively for italian players which offers real money tournaments in euros in addition to the usual play money games . pokerstars offers some ring games and tournaments on its main pokerstars.com site in euros . in march 2010 the site began allowing users to keep their real money accounts in british pounds and canadian dollars as well as u.s. dollars and euros . in february 2016 pokerstars announced it would launch online in new jersey for real money on march 21 2016 . 33 domain name seizure edit united states department of justice website seizure notice online poker was suspended on april 15 at the top three united states websites in order pokerstars full tilt poker and cereus poker network and continues to be suspended at the top two . on april 15 2011 the department of justice seized the . com internet addresses of the three online gambling sites 34 a total of five urls pokerstars.com fulltiltpoker.com absolutepoker.com ultimatebet.com and ub.com . main article u. s. v. scheinberg et al. on april 15 2011 the u.s. attorney s office for the southern district of new york seized and shut down pokerstars.com and several of its competitors sites alleging that the sites were violating federal bank fraud and money laundering laws . 35 on april 20 2011 the u.s. attorney s office returned control of the pokerstars.com domain name to the company in order to facilitate the withdrawal of u.s. players funds held in account with the companies . 36 on july 10 2012 pokerstars asserting the government had insufficient grounds on which to base the charges filed motions to dismiss the charges against them . 37 on july 31 2012 the us government dismissed with prejudice all civil complaints against pokerstars and full tilt poker after reaching a settlement with pokerstars which includes pokerstars purchasing full tilt . 6 under the terms of the settlement pokerstars and full tilt poker admitted no wrongdoing for their past u.s. activities . the u.s. government acknowledged both companies can apply for licenses to operate online gaming in the u.s. when a legal framework for such licenses is offered . 38 the settlement terms also called for pokerstars to acquire certain assets of full tilt poker from the government . on august 9 2012 pokerstars paid 225 million to the u.s. department of justice consummating the asset transfer of full tilt poker . full tilt poker was successfully relaunched on november 6 2012 . 39 notes edit pokerscout.com pokerstars online poker traffic report hendon mob tournament results chris moneymaker . pokerdb.thehendonmob.com . retrieved 2010 04 21 . chris moneymaker money800 poker player pokerlistings.com . pokerlistings . pokernews.com the moneymaker effect five years later may 23 2008 mobile poker free iphone ipad android poker games & apps pokerstars . pokerstars.com . a b pokerstars reaches settlement with the department of justice acquires full tilt poker . espn.com . caroline winter . pokerstars strikes u.s. deal to buy full tilt poker . businessweek.com . vardi nathan . amaya gaming in deal to buy pokerstars for 4.9 billion . forbes . retrieved 13 june 2014 . canada s amaya acquiring pokerstars owner rational group for 4.9 bn . montreal news.net . retrieved 13 june 2014 . wall street journal amaya completes acquisition of pokerstars and full tilt poker a b walsh dominic august 3 2005 . pokerstars to move its base before possible