Pennsylvania poker players may be sitting at tables with their peers in New Jersey, Michigan, and perhaps Nevada before the end of the month. It has been known for a while that the Keystone State was on the cusp of joining the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA), probably early in the second quarter of the year. However, the popular assumption was that operators might need several more months in order to implement the technology to start traffic-sharing. Not so, says the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB).
PGCB Director of Communications Doug Harbach told our peers at PlayPennsylvania that he expects a “launch” to take place within the next few weeks. Asked to clarify whether that meant that some operators would be ready to start networking immediately upon entry to the compact, he responded in the affirmative. However, Harbach cautioned that he didn’t mean all operators would.
Michigan was slow, Pennsylvania may not be
Assumptions about the timeline were based on how things played out in Michigan, the last state to successfully debut multi-state poker. It joined MSIGA in April 2023, but it wasn’t until the first day of 2024 that PokerStars threw the switch linking its Michigan players with those in New Jersey. WSOP took another five months after that, and BetMGM longer still.
However, at that time, WSOP was the only operator with a multi-state network, so PokerStars and BetMGM were starting from scratch. And WSOP’s existing network ran on older software than its new sites in Michigan and Pennsylvania, so a major upgrade was needed before it could expand the network.
Any or all of those operators could potentially network quickly in Pennsylvania. However, BetRivers Poker would first need to launch in a second state, as there’s no other site to network with currently. And DraftKings’ Electric Poker wouldn’t benefit much from shared traffic due to its small table sizes, so it’s unknown if it will even bother.
Implications for other states
The immediate impact of adding Pennsylvania to the poker networks is that traffic might jump by 50% or more. The combined population of New Jersey, Michigan, and Nevada is around 23 million, and Pennsylvania will add another 13 million to the market size.
However, traffic could grow even more if the addition of Pennsylvania triggers a snowball effect. Connecticut has been on the fence about joining MSIGA, but that prospect will become even more appealing the bigger the shared market gets. At the same time, West Virginia has already joined the compact but has no sites that can be networked. Some launches were expected last year, but have yet to materialize, so this may be the moment operators have been waiting for.
It’s a similar story in Nevada, where WSOP is the only operator. BetMGM has a license to launch poker whenever it wants, and has been pressured by the state regulators to hurry up. There, too, the explanation may prove to be that it was waiting for Pennsylvania.
Finally, there’s Delaware, which was once part of WSOP’s network. However, the state lottery changed technology partners from 888 to Rush Street Interactive, which cut off WSOP’s access. (WSOP’s US-facing sites are built on 888 technology).
Rush Street owns BetRivers, so it could potentially bring poker back to Delaware. However, its only site is in Pennsylvania, and Delaware doesn’t have the population to sustain a standalone poker room. Now that Pennsylvania could link up with Delaware, it may be time for a second BetRivers Poker launch.
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