Pennsylvania in Talks to Join Multistate Online Poker Agreement

Posted on: October 17, 2024, 07:31h. 

Last updated on: October 17, 2024, 09:44h.

Philip Conneller @casinoorgphilc Read More
Expertise: Gaming Business, Regulation, Tribal Gaming.

Pennsylvania is poised to join the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSiGA), which means it could soon begin sharing its online poker liquidity with other states in the compact

Pennsylvania, MSIGA, online poker, pool sharing
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), above, has directed the state’s gaming control board to initiate the process of joining MSiGA. (Image: Josh Shapiro/Facebook)

Current signatories to MSiGA share player pools across their borders, and soon, players in Pennsylvania could be check-raising new opponents in Nevada, Delaware, Michigan, and New Jersey.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) told PlayPannsylvania on Friday that it has begun negotiating for the state to join MSiGA at the request of Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro.

Why This Matters

Online poker needs a critical mass of players to thrive. The bigger the player pool, the bigger the tournament prize pools and choice of games and stakes available, which, in turn, attracts more players.

When the first states legalized and regulated online gambling in 2013, the new markets were strictly ring-fenced. This was done to restrict access to residents from states where online gambling wasn’t legal, but also because that made the markets easier to tax.

This situation didn’t work for online poker. Delaware, for example, with a population of just under 1 million, could barely sustain a couple of six-handed sit-and-gos, let alone a viable online poker ecosystem. Without meaningful liquidity, online poker stagnated.

Enter MSiGA

In 2014, Delaware and Nevada became the first signatories of MSiGA, with New Jersey joining shortly after. MSiGA is essentially a set of minimum regulatory and technical standards for liquidity pooling.

The agreement also requires that the operators divide the rake based on each player’s weighted contribution to the pot, allowing funds to be redistributed for tax purposes to the state where the player is located.

Pennsylvania legalized online poker in 2018 but held back from joining MSiGA after the legal climate changed unexpectedly.

Down to the Wire

That year, the 2011 DOJ opinion that the federal Wire Act only prohibited the interstate transmission of sports bets and not other forms of gambling was sensationally overturned by the Trump administration.

The 2011 opinion had emboldened the early adopters like Nevada and New Jersey to legalize online poker. But now the legality of these operations, along with online lotteries, and certainly MSiGA, was thrown into doubt.

The New Hampshire Lottery successfully sued the DOJ over the reversal, which critics claimed was done as a favor to the late Republican megadonor and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who hated online gambling.

With the 2011 interpretation restored, Pennsylvania is now ready to join MSiGA, and it would be the state with the biggest population yet — 13 million — to do so, providing online poker in the US a big shot in the arm.

It might even produce a snowball effect, bringing more states on board as online poker becomes a more viable product to regulate.