DAVIDBAAZOV

AMAYA INC. HAS BECOME A GAMING AND PUBLICLY TRADED POWERHOUSE IN LESS THAN 10 YEARS. NOT BAD FOR A HIGHSCHOOL DROPOUT

The Amaya that David Baazov owned in 2010 was only a penny stock with revenue of roughly $6 million from its electronic poker table. It wasn’t a whole lot different than the company he founded in 2005 after selling a computer reseller he had started after getting kicked out his parents’ house as a teenager. Today, the Montreal-based company has a market cap of $4.2 billion, estimated 2015 revenue of more than $1.4 billion, over double that posted a year ago, and a host of well-known online gaming brands such as PokerStars and Full Tilt that were acquired on Aug. 1, 2014, from Oldford Group Ltd. That US$4.9-billion deal, backed partially by the credit division of U.S. financial giant Blackstone and another US$2.9 billion from various banks, transformed Amaya into the largest player in the global poker industry, which will be worth US$41.4 billion by the end of this year, according to U.K. researcher Statista Inc. PokerStars holds approximately two-thirds market share and Amaya’s poker revenues in 2014 were more than 12 times those of its closest competitor. Not a bad few years work for a high school dropout.

Oh, there have been some hiccups along the way — most recently and notably, an investigation by Quebec’s market regulator, Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), into the trading of Amaya securities around the time its transformative acquisition was announced — but early investors can’t help but like the more than 300% rise in the company’s stock over the past couple of years. Baazov, by the way, says the company is confident the AMF will not find any violation of Canadian securities laws or regulations by Amaya’s directors or officers, which should eliminate one overhang on the company.

“Obviously the acquisition of Oldford Group in 2014 catapulted Amaya to the highest ranks of the gaming industry,” Baazov