Shared Liquidity Expands in US in 2023

PokerStars USA made a huge announcement this week with the first expansion of inter-state gaming in years. The operator will be combining the player pools of New Jersey and Michigan into a single pool starting at the beginning of 2023.

While the year-end holiday season is a time to hang out with family and friends, it is also a time to reflect on the past year and make new plans for the coming one. The most recent announcement from PokerStars USA falls into the latter category with massive news about the 2023 online poker landscape in the US – players on PokerStars in NJ and MI will be able to play against each other starting on the first of the year.

For years now, the online poker landscape in the US has been mired in legal limbo. After Black Friday, legal online poker slowly came back to the US in the form of state-segregated poker rooms with geographically limited liquidity. That began to change in 2014 with the original Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA) which saw Nevada and Delaware join into a single pool and then expanded to include New Jersey in 2017.

That’s where things stalled however, and only one operator, WSOP.com, was able to take advantage of the window to create a multi-state shared player pool between New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware. This latest announcement marks the first real move in shared liquidity since the creation of the WSOP.com network and follows Michigan’s signing of the MSIGA in 2022.

First Multi-State Pool Since 2017

With the Wire Act decision that prompted Black Friday still looming large in 2018, the US administration at the time reinterpreted the decision to send inter-state poker into legal limbo again. After the combination of player pools in NV, NJ, and DE on WSOP.com in 2017, the legal questions surrounding online poker stalled more states from joining the MSIGA.

With recent legal activity clarifying the situation however, Michigan became the first state since 2017 to join into the compact. That paved the way for PokerStars USA to announce that it would be creating the first multi-state player pool in almost six years.

Starting on Jan 1, 2023, players in New Jersey and Michigan will be able to sit down together at the same tables for poker. To celebrate the ground-breaking event, PokerStars USA is putting up $150,000 guaranteed in two tournaments on New Year’s Day to celebrate the combined player pool.

• New Years Special: NJ & MI Combined
  • Jan 1, 2023: 18:00 ET
  • $100 Buy-In, $100,000 Gtd
• New Years Mini Special: NJ & MI Combined
  • Jan 1, 2023: 18:30 ET
  • $10 Buy-In, $50,000 Gtd

Those two games will be just the beginning of the shared poker action in 2023 however. The two states will be playing against each other in the shared pool on PokerStars USA going forward, but it seems certain there will be further moves in inter-state poker in 2023.

While PA has yet to sign on to the MSIGA, that signing is anticipated and would add another large market to the possible shared pool. Equally, even without the addition of Pennsylvania, the shared pool on PokerStars between MI & NJ is almost certain to spur other operators to make similar moves, with WSOP.com being an obvious candidate to expand to a four-state network.

It’s been a long time in the dark since Black Friday, with only a little light on the shared liquidity front for online poker in the USA. With this latest announcement from PokerStars it looks like 2023 could be quite a bit brighter.

Shared Liquidity Expands in US in 2023

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