Long one of the powerhouses in the poker journalism world, PokerNews.com has been delivering content to the poker community for 15 years. Now their integrity is coming into question as it was revealed that The Stars Group is the majority owner of the poker information outlet.
In an article by Joss Wood on PokerNews.com, iBus Media, the ownership of PokerNews.com, revealed that they were now comfortable in releasing the fact that the founder of the site, Antanas ‘Tony G’ Guoga, had been gradually selling the site to PokerStars and, as a result, now The Stars Group. “Since 2010, he (Guoga) has steadily sold his equity in stages to The Stars Group, who currently own a large majority of the business which (Guoga) has now exited.”
The media director for iBus Media, Jon Squires, was quoted by Wood as saying, “iBus has always maintained its independence and will continue to do so. PokerNews will continue to be the voice of players and a promoter of online poker. This is an exciting time at iBus as we are growing the range and quality of the services that we offer our iGaming partners. Several recent hires have brought increased depth to our management team and we are extremely optimistic about the group’s ability to continue its growth trajectory. We shall continue to work as hard as we always have to provide both players and clients with the best experience, as we shall continue to grow high value services for the iGaming sector.”
The question of independence of a poker news site that is owned by an entity it is supposed to be covering is an important one. In the article, Wood states that ‘iBus has always been run as an independent business.” He is also quick to point out that the “commercial relationship” between PokerStars and its brands and iBus’ affiliate revenues are “less than 5%.”
Still, the specter of an online poker site owning a top news provider of the industry is problematic. In the interest of full disclosure, a long time ago this writer was a part of the PokerNews team and, as a result, knew of situations where an online poker site had bought preferential coverage for a particular period. Usually at the time of the World Series of Poker or other major poker tournaments, sites such as Ultimate Bet and Full Tilt Poker would buy “focus” for their stable of players as they worked their way through the various tournaments, ensuring mention of the site and their sponsored players more often than other players.
The outright ownership of an outlet is dangerous territory, however. For example, years ago the poker journalism field was castigated for not being more inquisitive into the actions during the “Superuser” Scandal at Absolute Poker and UB.com and rightfully so. Other scandals involving multi-tabling or collusion by players also was under covered by many organizations. Part of the reluctance of the poker news sites at that time – and, to some extent, it still exists today – is that the news sites are dependent on affiliate revenues generated from these online businesses. It would have been proverbially “cutting your nose off to spite your face” for news sites to have been overly aggressive in covering the story.
That isn’t the case so much today. With different revenue streams, online news sites have gravitated away from being exclusively affiliate revenue driven. As a result, these news sites have a greater freedom to be more investigative into the online gaming and poker industries. The owner
What would happen at iBus if, through investigation of a story, it was found that there were improprieties at PokerStars or in The Stars Group? We can hope that they would approach the story in an impartial manner and report on it, but the ownership of the news outlet by the very thing it is reporting on could present a conflict of interest and a blockage of the investigative path. Furthermore, what prevents The Stars Group from using PokerNews for its own ends, either to promote its products or to undercut its opposition, which is already behind the eight-ball due to PokerStars’ prominence in the industry?
As you can see, there are several mines in the field that The Stars Group has chosen to walk in revealing their ownership of PokerNews.com. The big question in all of this is will the poker community care?
