Following the dark days of “Black Friday” nearly fifteen years ago, the States of America’s online poker market has been, at best, a fragmented one. Since the day when the federal government ended online play on the major sites in the industry, the individual states have had to work under a conglomerate of differing regulations, unregulated offshore sites, or do without. Come April, however, the current situation in the U.S. will improve as one of the largest states with online gaming will join the nationwide compact, nearly doubling its size in one swing.
Pennsylvania to Join MSIGA Compact in April
In October, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro directed the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) to examine the plausibility of the state joining in on the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA) for online casino gaming and poker. “In order to remain competitive…I am expressing my strong support for Pennsylvania to join the MSIGA alongside Michigan, Delaware, Nevada, New Jersey, and West Virginia,” Shapiro stated in a letter to the PGCB. “Pennsylvania should capitalize on our status as a leader in legalized gambling and join this compact, which would bring in additional revenues for the Commonwealth.”
The PGCB undertook this review and applied for admission into the MSIGA in January. It is unknown what the delay was between the January request and now (this is the 21st century), but that agreement has been signed. All that appears necessary are the appropriate gaming outlets that will be affected by the addition to adjust their software to allow for those in Pennsylvania to access the interstate compact and vice versa (those in the member states to enable Pennsylvania to in). The start of April has been targeted for those mechanizations to occur.
This move by Pennsylvania will help to serve two real beneficiaries: the players and the gaming companies. With the current makeup of the MSIGA sans Pennsylvania, there is a player pool of approximately 25.7 million in population. Pennsylvania alone will add another 13.1 million in population to the MSIGA pool, increasing it by slightly over 50%.
The gaming companies will also reap a sizeable windfall from the influx of fresh players. Gaming outlets such as WSOP.com, PokerStars, BetMGM, BetRivers, and partypoker would all be able to take advantage of pooling their players for interstate competitions. Although some of the aforementioned are not in all six of the states mentioned, these companies all at least have outlets in some of them (BetMGM has outlets in Michigan and New Jersey) that will definitely add to their bottom line.
Running Out of States with Online Poker
The next likely question would be whether other states are looking into joining the MSIGA, which was created in 2014 to allow for online poker sites (and all online casino activities) to be compacted between states, is who is next? Unfortunately, we have reached the end of states that offer online casino gaming and poker as an activity. The seven-member MSIGA, with the addition of Pennsylvania, does not have additional states that could be added because online casino gaming and/or poker have not been regulated in any other state.
The two major forms of online wagering today, sports betting and Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS), do not require large pools of players to make them profitable. This is why 38 states have enacted, in some form, online or live sports betting or DFS for their citizenry. Compacting would only allow these states to do would be to offer larger guaranteed prize pools for their DFS activities; it would not affect sports betting, as that is an individual activity that is not affected by player numbers.
Until more states add on online casino gaming and/or poker (Nevada does not offer online casino activities, just poker), the MSIGA has now reached the largest size it can. Considering the numbers, the future may change things but, for now, there are no more horizons left to bring into the fold for online casino gaming and poker.
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