PokerStars Reveals Atlantic Club Purchase Price with Restraining Order

The drama continues between PokerStars and Atlantic Club Casino Hotel and, as more details of the sale have been revealed, the rest of the world.

It’s your standard online poker giant falls in love with land-based casino, online poker giant offers to wed casino, casino calls off the engagement, poker giant pursues court to prevent casino from marrying anyone else kind of story. Only this story has a few more players, a few more plot twists, and a surprising lack of initial investment.

After The Atlantic Club backed out of the sale , the Rational Group, owner of PokerStars, shook its fist at the heavens and vowed the deal was not dead. And then it walked itself to a New Jersey court on Monday to get a retraining order barring The Atlantic Club from selling itself to anyone else.

Those court papers revealed the piece of information we’ve been waiting for: the purchase price. According to PokerStars, the purchase agreement equaled a jaw-dropping, disbelief-faced $15 million, which, if the deal eventually goes through, will make it the lowest amount ever paid for a casino. Ever.

In its application for the temporary restraining order, the Rational Group states that Resorts International (current owners of the Atlantic Club Casino Hotel) violated the New Jersey Control Act by attempting to cancel a casino purchase after the application for casino operator approval had begun. According to the complaint, Resorts International had asked for a $4 million termination fee regarding the purchase agreement. Rational went on to say that they had already provided Resorts International with $11 million of the $15 million purchase price.

“Should Rational comply with this demand, Rational would have paid the entire purchase price and received exactly nothing in return,” the complaint concludes.

The initial hearing has been scheduled for May 17th with Judge Batten.

Author: GamesAndCasino