When it comes to US online poker, there are only eight states that regulate the activity. Will more look to regulate in 2025? And why does internet poker still lag behind online casino games and sports betting.? And could multi-state agreements help the industry expand even more?
Poker players! We’ve all been there! You show up to your favorite poker room ready to play, but there are no seats available so you have to join the waiting list. And that’s sort of where US online poker is right now. While sports betting is regulated in nearly 40 states, internet poker is legal in just eight. So why the disparity? Well, sports betting (like most forms of gambling) are played against the house. But for poker you need players… lots and lots of players.
You see, in the same way that a poker room in a casino will only open a new table when they have enough players to fill all the seats, state regulators and online operators will only open a new virtual poker room when they have enough players to fill the virtual seats. That’s bad news for some small states with low populations. But there’s hope: Shared poker liquidity is an agreement between states that allows poker rooms on the web to share players across state lines and fill those virtual tables. And that’s good news for states with small populations, because it means size doesn’t matter! Well, it doesn’t matter for internet poker.
Enter the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement. MSIGA is the shared liquidity agreement between five of the eight states regulating the activity (Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, and West Virginia). But don’t look now because this compact could soon be adding three more states: Pennsylvania is a large state where web based poker has been up and running for quite some time. But even they want to join the internet poker compact. In fact, the state Gaming Control Board is in negotiations to do just that right now.
Next up on the US online poker tour is Connecticut, but no official launch date has been set yet. Possibly because the state only has 3.5 million residents, and possibly because Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun have kind of a monopoly on this whole online gambling thing. However, joining an online poker compact could certainly make the activity viable there. Then we have Rhode Island, who just passed internet poker regulation in March of this year. However, Bally’s is the only operator in the state, and they don’t offer poker. Plus, with a population of just over 1 million people, joining a poker compact may be the only way they ever get it.
And finally this week, while joining the multi-state US online poker compact could certainly help with regulation and growth, it’s no guarantee of success. West Virginia joined the compact over a year ago, and Delaware was an original member of the compact back in 2018. And yet, no operators have moved in, and you can’t play real money online poker in either state. Now there are dozens of states that could potentially regulate web poker next year, but only eight of them are considered to be likely: Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, and New York.
And while there are some big names on that list with big populations, most if not all could still benefit from joining the poker compact. So, to wrap up this episode, joining the multi-state compact may certainly help regulate online poker where you live, but it won’t be a guarantee that you can actually play poker over the web where you live.