Monday night saw the launch of the first ever tri-state online poker network in the USA, incorporating player pools from New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada. The games for such became available to play on the World Series of Poker (WSOP) platform in both Nevada and New Jersey, while the 888 Poker site served New Jersey and Delaware. The latter occurred via the 888-powered sites – Delaware Park, Harrington Raceway and Dover Downs.
Early figures saw some of the poker rooms witness a small increase in traffic, while the network games were able to be played without incurring any kind of technical problems. Because of this, the successful launch actually happened one night earlier than was expected.
It was in the middle of April that the sites included in the shared-liquidity pool announced that they had submitted both software and games to the regulatory bodies of all three states, so they could be tested. The online poker platforms were then hopeful that the tri-state poker network would become a live entity on May 1. However, approval was swiftly pushed through by all three regulatory bodies and April 30 became the official launch date.
Where Do Things Proceed from Here?
It was New Jersey that signed on to join the Multi-State Internet Gaming Association (MSIGA) in October of last year. Of course, as was recently reported, Delaware and Nevada have shared their player pools under this same agreement since the year of 2015. The 888 Holdings company has worked as the software provider for Caesars Interactive Entertainment and the World Series of Poker-branded poker rooms for a long time now. And the three previously spoken of sites in Delaware also receive a similar service from the company.
This being the case, Caesars and 888 are the only two organisations that provide online poker rooms in all three of the states involved in the shared-liquidity network. Therefore, they were the obvious choice as the first ones to apply to offer the shared-liquidity games.
With the tri-state poker network fully in operation now, all three of the states can look forward to a schedule that promises to incorporate large tournament prizes as well as an increase in the amount of real money play traffic across all sites and states. This will be a lot more noticeable in smaller poker markets, like the ones in Delaware and Nevada. Alas, the Head of Online Poker at WSOP, Bill Rini recently said that significant growth is sure to be seen in all three states as time passes.
As it happens, the signs are all pointing towards online poker seeing significant and appealing growth over the coming months and years, with the potential for more states to legalise and regulate it. As has been reported several times, Pennsylvania recently authorised online gambling, meaning that it too could bring forth several US online poker rooms for its citizens. These are most likely to launch towards the end of 2018. If Pennsylvania should also opt to join the interstate poker network, which many believe will happen at some time, this is likely to double the size of the player pool too.
