PokerStars will go live on the Betfair platform from 13 August 2026, with Betfair customers accessing the poker product through a co-branded “PokerStars on Betfair” offer. Paddy Power and Sky Poker will host the same product later this year.
All four brands sit inside Flutter Entertainment’s brand portfolio, which covers PokerStars alongside Betfair, Paddy Power, Sky Betting & Gaming, FanDuel, Sisal and SNAI. The move puts customers from separate Flutter brands into shared player pools rather than leaving each brand to run its own poker liquidity.
A liquidity-first operating model
The integration is part of a shift to what Flutter calls the PokerStars Network (PSN), an operating model built around pooled liquidity and regionally tailored products rather than a single global PokerStars site serving every market it can legally reach.
Liquidity is the constraint that decides whether an online poker room works. Thin player pools mean fewer active tables, longer waits at higher stakes and smaller guaranteed tournament prizes, which pushes recreational and professional players elsewhere. Consolidating brands onto one network raises the number of players competing for the same seats.
Mike Woodbridge, Chief Commercial Officer at PokerStars, said the change is about keeping the brand central to Flutter’s portfolio.
“PokerStars is the most iconic brand in global poker. These changes ensure that it remains a core, strategic brand within Flutter’s portfolio.”
Regulatory fragmentation squeezed the player pool
Woodbridge was direct about the pressure that produced the restructure, pointing to market-by-market licensing rules that stopped PokerStars from running one shared global pool and forced it out of some jurisdictions entirely.
“In recent years the market environment has got harder for brands like PokerStars. A patchwork of regulation from one market to the next has fragmented the global game and led us to make difficult decisions to exit certain markets and not enter others.”
“Players have felt it through thinner fields and smaller tournament prizes on our site. We want to do something about that, so we’re moving to a different model with the aim of improving liquidity and player pools and bringing people back to the poker table.”
Ring-fenced liquidity is the standard position across regulated European markets. Italy, Spain, France and Portugal share pools between themselves under a 2017 agreement, but most other licensed jurisdictions require operators to keep domestic players separate. Each new licence PokerStars takes carves another slice off the global pool it was built on.
The FanDuel and Italian precedents
Flutter has run this model before. PokerStars relaunched in the United States as “PokerStars on FanDuel”, merging player pools across Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania into a single network. In Italy, the product migrated to Flutter’s Sisal and SNAI brands.
Italy matters here as a proof point. It is one of the larger regulated online markets in Europe, with online GGR of around €5 billion, and Sisal and SNAI give PokerStars distribution well beyond what a standalone poker site reaches.
Cost cuts preceded the migration
The platform change follows a round of job cuts. In July, Flutter confirmed more than 100 redundancies at PokerStars, affecting teams in Canada, Europe, the UK and Ireland. Running the product on partner platforms rather than a standalone technology stack removes duplicated engineering and marketing functions.
PokerStars has also connected its exchange product to Betfair Exchange liquidity, so the poker migration is not the first shared-pool move between the two brands. The restructuring sits alongside wider corporate change at the group, which has been reviewing its London listing and named a new chief executive this month.
What happens next
Kim Daly, Managing Director for Betfair, framed the launch as a combination of two established brands.
“I’m thrilled to bring two iconic brands under one roof. By integrating PokerStars onto the Betfair platform, we’re uniting two category-transformers that share a passion for innovation and player empowerment.”
The test is whether pooling Betfair, Paddy Power and Sky Poker customers with PokerStars players produces fields deep enough to hold guarantees at the tournament level, and whether existing PokerStars regulars accept a co-branded product. The Paddy Power and Sky Poker migrations later this year will show how far Flutter intends to take the model, and whether brands outside the UK and Ireland follow.
Source: Flutter Entertainment
