Who are the Key Figures in the Online Gambling World?

Online gambling has become immensely popular over the past several years, and with the introduction of new and even more innovative services and products for desktop and now mobile devices, which has created a surge of Internet gambling. It's interesting to look at this new exciting world and some of the key people who have contributed and will continue to contribute towards its further growth. Meet some of the powerful people in the industry.

The Scheinberg Family

The Scheinbergs have played a huge role in online poker as well as Internet gambling. Isai and Mark Scheinberg are a father and son Israeli-Canadian team who are well known as the founders and former owners of PokerStars and also the former owners of Full Tilt Poker. Currently, these two websites are the most popular and most profitable online poker rooms in the world.

Both Scheinbergs have a technological background and very wide general knowledge which has contributed to their success in creating an online gambling empire of sorts, which is not surprising.

PokerStars, founded in 2001, was initially headquartered in Costa Rica. The Scheinbergs had a majority stake in the company that owned the online card room, Rational Enterprises. Later, PokerStars' headquarters were moved to the Isle of Man.

Rational Group, as it is now known, became a prosperous business and had millions of registered players. During 2011, the card room's operations in the United States were shut down, which led to a criminal indictment filed against Isai Scheinberg. He was accused of letting his company continue providing gambling services while the courts were still testing the interpretation of the online gambling laws in the country.

Then in 2012, the US Department of Justice and PokerStars came to an agreement that the card room would pay $731 million to settle the charges. However, it did not admit to any wrongdoing. As part of the settlement, Isai Scheinberg was barred from taking any executive posts in the Rational Group, and as part of the agreement, the company had to purchase the rival card room Full Tilt Poker, which was facing the same charges.

Despite these legal challenges as well as other issues the Scheinbergs have faced over the past decade, they have managed to create a brand that has changed the face of online poker as well as the gambling industry as a whole.

David Baazov

David Baazov was chairman of Amaya Inc., a little-known Canadian company that has several assets in the gambling industry. Since August 2014, Mr. Baazov (then 34) contributed his magic, ensuring that Amaya is no longer an obscure company.

In August 2014, Amaya purchased the Isle of Man company Rational Group—which included PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker—for $4.9 billion. This deal was the most expensive in the history of online gambling. Thus, Mr. Baazov and his company became owners of the world's largest poker rooms, and Mark Scheinberg, majority stake owner of Rational Group, became one of the world's youngest billionaires.

In the months prior to the takeover announcement, Mr. Baazov had a difficult task convincing the former owners of the card rooms, several hesitant bankers, and top Wall Street investors that this deal would be profitable for all involved parties.

In the end, Amaya became the owners of both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker after selling $1.7 billion of their stock and securing a $1 billion investment through Blackstone's GSO credit division.

As an aside, GSO had never before invested such a large amount of money on a single deal.

This achievement of Mr. Baazov's was unprecedented; he was able to do the unthinkable in a relatively short period of time. At the time of the purchase of Rational Group, Amaya was just a publicly traded company boasting an annual revenue of no more than $150 million. Yet they were able to take over the larger Isle of Man-based gambling giant which was generating an average revenue of $1.1 billion per year.

Now with their new owner, PokerStars and Full Tilt have a better chance of returning to online gambling in the USA. US lawmakers and interested parties have previously pointed out that the world's largest poker rooms would need a new owner if they wanted to succeed in reintroducing their operations in the United States.

The first steps toward a return were made in October. Amaya announced that the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement had given them the green light for PokerStars and Full Tilt to launch their operations within the state's borders, likely during the first half of 2016.

Players must not expect a nationwide relaunch of online poker soon, as there are many people—and some quite influential ones—working hard to prevent it from happening, one of whom is the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.

Teddy Sagi

Billionaire Israeli-born businessman Teddy Sagi is considered a major figure in the online gambling world through his software developing company Playtech, which was founded in 1999 and has gradually grown into one of the largest software developers as well as a provider of services and products for a market that is constantly growing in the Internet gambling industry.

Playtech is listed on the London Stock Exchange and provides its B2B customers with a growing variety of online applications that include poker, bingo, casino, live gaming, and sports betting. What's more, the company also offers a cross-platform management system that allows international gambling operators to take advantage of its innovative tools to maximize yield, cross-selling opportunities, as well as player loyalty. In the past 16 years, Playtech has partnered with many major gambling companies such as William Hill, Bet365, Betfair, Paddy Power, and many more.

Mr. Sagi has built a software development giant which boasts operations worth more than $500 million. Over the years, Mr. Sagi sold a greater portion of his shares in the company to fund more acquisitions and now holds a 33.3% stake in it.

Recently, Playtech announced that they were making their first foray into online Forex trading when they purchased Mr. Sagi's TradeFX for €208 million. The company also expressed interest in purchasing Plus500 for £460 million and AvaTrade for £69 million. However, both deals were never completed due to regulatory concerns. Despite these terminated takeovers, Playtech still expects to establish itself in the competitive and growing online Forex trading market alongside online gambling.

Pioneers Shaping the Industry

The three above-mentioned individuals are just a few of many influential and powerful figures who have contributed to the online gambling industry's current state; they have turned it into a billion-dollar industry. All of these people possess innumerable skills, a natural flair for business, and a very strong will to achieve their goals. The presence of such people in the world of Internet gambling ensures this growing market will become ever more popular in the future.