There has been very little enthusiasm regarding the US online poker market. Nevada and Delaware have been providing such for a few years now, and even have a shared liquidity market going on between them. However, this hasn’t sparked such a huge amount of interest from the US gambling market as of yet. That could be set to change though, as on May 1, New Jersey will incorporate itself into the shared prize pool. It could perhaps be the jump start that online poker in the United States needs.
The news of the interstate poker network was announced earlier on in the week, stating that the World Series of Poker (WSOP) platform, powered by 888 Poker, will begin running games and tournaments for real money for players from all three states. This marks quite a historic move for online poker in the States.
The head of online poker for WSOP.com, Bill Rini spoke of this as being “unchartered territory” and that it’s an exciting time when it comes to the American online poker industry. Rini also spoke of the intent to kick off this tri-state poker network before the 2018 World Series of Poker tournament begins in Las Vegas.
The deal between New Jersey and Nevada actually took place in autumn of last year, and even at that time it felt as though it was long overdue. Nevada and Delaware have been sharing their poker prize pools since 2015, but the number of players from both states that hold an interest in this is quite small. That’s why adding the poker populace of New Jersey to it is expected to provide a welcome change to things. It could see the games and prize pools at WSOP.com expand by over 200%.
WSOP.com Takes the First Steps
World Series of Poker acts as the only interactive gaming operator within Nevada to provide poker, and therefore, revenue from such isn’t released to the public. On the other hand, New Jersey possesses two online poker operators alongside WSOP, meaning that it does release its results on such.
It is with this data that predictions for the interstate poker network have been able to be made. Figures from New Jersey’s gaming regulators said that the online poker market from January to March of 2018 brought in $5.7 million. That’s a large drop of 16% in comparison to the first three months of 2017.
Even though this is the case, the online poker market of New Jersey more than dwarfs that of Delaware. The latter of the two has only managed to average about $18,000 in revenue from such games during the first three months of 2018. That’s why everyone in the industry will now be anxiously awaiting May 1 – to see how uptake of shared liquidity online poker goes. One analyst in the US said that the impact of New Jersey players coming to the network could more or less be seen quite instantly.
