The long-awaited World Series of Poker is now available in Michigan. Punters in Michigan now have 3 online poker rooms to choose from, giving them more variety than ever. With Michigan in the bag, WSOP is now available in a total of 5 states namely Delaware, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey.
WSOP launched in Michigan not too long ago on March 28th thanks to its partnership with 888. WSOP Online is powered by 888 next-generation poker platforms and will now run bracelet events and tournaments each week for poker players in Michigan. 888 and WSOP have also been long-time partners of Caesars.
Caesars Interactive and 888 Holdings recently extended their longstanding relationship for an additional 5 years. This means that 888’s award-winning software will continue to power WSOP Nevada, WSOP Michigan, WSOP New Jersey, as well as WSOP PA until 2026. 888’s technology has been powering WSOP since the two brands forged a partnership in 2013.
888 has also been the WSOP live festival sponsor for the last 5 years. Because of this extended partnership agreement, 888 will keep fuelling the country’s market-only interstate shared player liquidity poker network across Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware. With this extended deal, 888 will supply WSOP with its revamped software which features colossal upgrades in functionality as well as graphics.
This upgraded software took close to 2 years to realize and will also give WSOP the ability to host multi-day, as well as multi-flight tournaments, which should help to attract even more poker players and professionals. This year, 888 has made it clear that it has its sights set on growing the WSOP platform geographically as more states continue to legalize iGaming.
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WSOP will benefit greatly from interstate poker
Last year, the US court of appeal for the First Circuit affirmed the decision it made in 2019 that the 1961 Wire Act was limited to sports bets, thus clearing the way for interstate iGaming. As a result, interstate online poker is expected to boom this year thanks to the ability to combine player pools from multiple jurisdictions.
This ability to combine player pools is commonly referred to as shared liquidity and is regarded by many as the key to success in today’s online poker. Online poker sites are highly dependent on attracting large crowds of poker players to their games in a similar fashion as multi-state lotteries do.
When it comes to online poker tournaments and competitions, the more participants that play, the more games are accessible, which in turn generates larger prize pools. At present, only one online poker operator allows customers from multiple states to participate in tournaments and competitions. 888 Poker in conjunction with the All-American Poker network along with 3 other racinos utilizes WSOP to offer punters in Delaware online poker.
The expansion of interstate online poker networks has been a long and grueling road that even caused Pennsylvania to delay the launch of its now budding iGaming market in 2019. While PA did eventually legalize its iGaming market, it took a while before it considered interstate online gaming. West Virginia also legalized online poker in 2019.
However, so far, the state is still yet to allow an online poker room to launch operations. That’s because the population in West Virginia is still too low to sustain an iGaming market. As such, the state has been waiting for shared liquidity to happen in order to make its iGaming dreams a reality.
Michigan’s laws explicitly permit its gaming regulators to determine if online poker operators can combine their player pools with other states. As such, this May, the Michigan Gaming Control Board finally gave the green light to allow online poker players in the state to compete against poker players in Delaware, New Jersey, as well as Michigan. With Michigan joining the multistate poker compact, the number of potential pools of poker participants in multistate competitions has now more than doubled.
With this compact, poker players in Michigan will now enjoy more variety and will have a chance to compete for large prize pools against competitors in neighboring states. Before licensed operators and other platform providers such as BetMGM can take part in multistate poker, they must fulfill several requirements. For instance, all operators must meet all the requirements and conditions set in the multijurisdictional agreement and must obtain approval from the board to launch multi-state poker.
Operators that do not currently supply Michigan punters with online poker are also allowed to pursue multistate poker through a partnership with another provider. Operators in Michigan will also be allowed to migrate their entire poker operations to a state that is in the compact. Poker platforms in Michigan can also connect to other poker platforms in other states within the compact through a remote gaming system.
Even though Michigan regulators have given multistate poker a nod, Michigan operators still have a lot of groundwork to cover. The board is working hard to lay down regulations that will see gamblers in the state protected. While this agreement is currently limited to 4 states, more states are expected to join the compact before the year ends.
Nevada and Delaware were the first states to lead the way in shared liquidity. Delaware legalized its iGaming market in 2012 while Delaware followed soon after. Since their debut, the 2 markets have been co-dependent until 2015 when the governors of both states made things official by allowing shared online poker liquidity.
Under the terms of the 2015 deal, state income was to be split based on the location of the participants. However, all poker players would be playing in similar pools. This Multi-state agreement was the first of its kind in the country. Even though it did not impact the revenue generated by the states considerably, it did successfully lay the framework for continued interstate expansion.
Final Thoughts
A year later in 2013, New Jersey became the 3rd state to legalize iGaming. It was also the largest state to welcome online gambling, being 3 times larger than Nevada. As such, New Jersey was the first state with adequate liquidity to support a vibrant multistate compact. The governor, Chris Christie added his John Hancock to the MSIGA in 2017, which effectively created the 3-state pact that Michigan recently joined.
