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A fourth state has finally joined the US Interstate Poker Pact. As a part of what once seemed like an important deal that industry experts have cooled on, Michigan has now joined three other states in sharing a player pool for online poker.
US Interstate Poker Pact Adds Its Fourth Member
Unlike many forms of online gambling, poker requires certain elements of its ecosystem. In short, having more players together in one place who can play with each other is critical. The US Interstate Poker Pact was supposed to help with that, but it never gained very much steam as multiple states regulated online gambling.
However, that has started to change. Michigan has joined on as the fourth member of this pact.
This deal includes provisions for player sharing, profit sharing and other elements that help to make online poker work between players in different states. However, the importance of it cannot be understated when it comes to ultimately serving the players. While many people will look at this as a business deal, it will affect poker fans more than anyone else.
Another element of this situation is that it reignites hope for the pact to bring on even more members. While we’ll have to wait and see what happens with it, we have reasons to look forward to the future of US online poker.
What Joining the US Interstate Poker Pact Involves
On the most basic level, the idea behind the US Interstate Poker Pact is to allow different regulated US markets to share players in poker rooms. For example, you could be playing from Michigan in a cash game against players from other states. Additionally, this now includes Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware. Players who are familiar with the history of online gambling regulation in the US will notice something. All three of those states were three of the first to have regulated online poker.
That’s not a coincidence. Those states noticed very quickly that their player pools individually weren’t enough to keep the games going. Additionally, if the games do not run, then the rooms can’t pull a rake. Since that rake is what’s taxed by the states involved, it’s easy to see where the problem was.
When you allow players to pool together in this way, it helps everyone involved. The reason is that you need a minimum number of players active at any given time for games to run. Without those tables filling up to sufficient levels, the games simply don’t exist. At the very least, they don’t exist in a functional form.
In the past, many poker rooms with lesser traffic have employed individuals to start games and play short-handed, meaning with only a few players at the table. The idea behind this is that it helps to stimulate the players into joining and keeping games running. Unfortunately for them, the states don’t have provisions for doing this. Accordingly, an agreement like the US Interstate Poker Pact is about the best they can hope for.
Will Other States Join the US Interstate Poker Pact?
It’s hard to say whether they will or will not, at least in the near future. In an ideal world, they would all join, and we would see another poker boom. However, that’s generally considered unlikely. For whatever reason, even though more states are regulating the games, they aren’t joining this pact. Additionally, we think a lot of this comes from many laws and regulatory guidelines being written by people who don’t necessarily understand the nuances of the industry. That’s particularly the case for a game like poker, which isn’t seen as a priority compared to casino or sports.
In any event, we do expect other states to join on at some point. However, it’s virtually impossible to say which those will be or when it will happen. That’s a real shame too because it ultimately hurts the players the most in the end.