Online poker is an ever-growing topic within the United States – and why wouldn’t it be? With more states legalising online gambling and more looking to involve themselves in the sector, it’s only natural. However, one thing that’s currently out-of-the-loop as far as the forefront is concerned, is interstate poker.
Nevada and Delaware were the first two states to legalise online poker, which occurred over five years ago. It was in 2015 that these two states went on to create the Multi-State Internet Gaming Association (MSIGA). Players from these two states are now able to compete in the same pool, even though they log in via different clients in different locations.
Now though, with New Jersey and Pennsylvania legalising online poker in more recent times, the network could be looking to include two new states into the pool. World Series of Poker (WSOP) currently runs online poker operations within New Jersey and Nevada, but for the moment, players from these states are cut off from one another. That being said, it looks as though things could change in the area in the upcoming months and years. By the end of 2018, it’s possible that the multi-state poker network could include all four mentioned states. In anticipation of this, WSOP has been working hard with its network partner – 888 Poker – to create a unified product in the markets that they serve.
More About Multi-State Online Poker
As things stand currently with the multi-state network, rake and revenue that is generated by Nevada players stays in Nevada, with the same holding true for those from Delaware. Things don’t go much further than this. And while this doesn’t really have much of an impact for Nevada (considering it’s the largest gambling state in the US), it’s quite an important part of Delaware’s online gambling world, being smaller in size.
Towards the end of 2017, New Jersey went on to include its name in the MSIGA, bringing forth a three-state poker network alliance. Only a few months after this and the Division of Gaming Enforcement in New Jersey is reviewing certain operators, such as WSOP, who would like to take advantage of this. For now, this is the only operator that can incorporate New Jersey into the shared network instantly.
To add to this, the legal online gambling sector of Pennsylvania should become a live and operating entity later on this year, with a WSOP-branded poker room most likely being available at Harrah’s Philadelphia casino. At the moment, Pennsylvania has not joined the MSIGA, but the likelihood is that it will do so once its own online gambling industry gets in motion. In fact, the iGaming law of Pennsylvania already has certain provisions in place relating to liquidity sharing.
Therefore, it’s quite likely that by this time in 2019, players from all four of these states could be competing on one and the same platform.
WSOP remains as the only online poker room that provides games within both Nevada and New Jersey. And along with 888 Poker, all three states currently offering online gambling are being served by WSOP. This means that it is quite nicely positioned to be able to provide a multi-state poker product in a quick amount of time.
