23 Apr 2025 Online poker site companies in Pennsylvania will soon be able to house all of their players in a single virtual site as the state is set to join the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA). Doug Harbach, communications director for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, told several poker media outlets that shared player liquidity could be implemented very soon, likely in just a few weeks. Pennsylvania applied to join MSIGA in the fall and received acceptance by December. Bureaucratic processes typically require signing and clearing a deluge of documentation. Which Sites Will Merge and What It Means Once everything is sorted, the online sites based in Pennsylvania that are also active in the member states will be able to consolidate all their players into one site. Currently, three rooms are available: BetMGM, PokerStars, and WSOP Online. The three sites do not consolidate players from New Jersey, Nevada, and Michigan; the sole exception is WSOP Online. You can bet that it will quickly connect its Pennsylvania product to this space. Forget about smaller prize pools and World Series of Poker bracelets and rings; Pennsylvania players will now compete against one another. If all three states where WSOP Online distributes player liquidity have a successful year, players from Pennsylvania will have the opportunity to participate in the same bracelet tournaments. This opens the door to dozens more online tournaments and guarantees a larger prize pool. According to the schedule, Pennsylvanians only managed to win four bracelets last year. Nevada, New Jersey, and Michigan players competed for 33 bracelets. Outlook for the WSOP and Other States The WSOP starts in a month, but the online schedule is still unavailable. The latest news suggests that the non-sequestered timetable includes Pennsylvania. PokerStars and BetMGM share players from Michigan and New Jersey. Given that both sites provide qualifying for their live tournaments, it's not surprising that they would merge their player pools. The other two states that are members of MSIGA are Delaware and West Virginia. Delaware does not currently have a site functioning due to the lottery board's decision to let the previous provider's contract expire without an alternative provider. Similarly, West Virginia has a robust online gambling and casino business but a relatively small population and has not established any sites. Several states, including the biggest, New York, are moving very close to allowing online poker, and legislators in Connecticut are trying to join MSIGA. Although progress is gradual and often uphill, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 effectively put an end to legalized online poker in the United States. However, the game is gradually making a triumphant comeback.
