Rational Group Applies for Online Casino License in Italy
The Rational Group's plans to expand Full Tilt Poker's online casino offering continued this week as the company applied for a license to operate an online casino in Italy's regulated market.
As reported by eGaming Review, should Italy gaming regulator AAMS accept the application and grant a casino license to the company, Rational would then launch a brand new platform from the domain FullTilt.it, which currently displays a "Coming Soon" splash page.
Rational's application to offer casino games in Italy comes two weeks after Spain's Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOY) granted Rational a license to offer roulette and blackjack games in Spain's regulated market through its REEL Spain subsidiary.
The move toward a strengthening of Rational's casino offer comes also a few weeks after the company signed a $4.9 billion takeover deal with gambling giant Amaya Gaming as part of the strategy presented by Amaya's CEO David Baazov during a conference call held on June 13.
Talking about the future plans for Rational's PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker brands, Baazov explicitly mentioned his intention to diversify the companies' income sources by exploring new markets such as betting, social gaming and online gambling.
"With the continuing trend of online gaming regulation around the world, the company has in front of itself an enormous opportunity to leverage its brand recognition and customer loyalty to diversify into other gaming verticals as casino, sports betting and social gaming," Baazov said.
"[Rational's] companies do not only have the ability to attract new players, but they are also able to offer popular tables and slot games to their millions of players using their poker platforms," Baazov continued, anticipating what many imagined would result in Amaya adding new popular hits to the current casino games already available on Full Tilt Poker.
Image courtesy of fc03.deviantart.net
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