PokerStars USA Revs Up MI and NJ Offerings
The story of US online poker has focused a great deal on Michigan and New Jersey in the first month and a half of the new year. And the featured player in the story is PokerStars. These highlights spring from PokerStars fully embracing the multi-state poker agreement between Michigan and New Jersey, working hard to join those player pools, and launching that two-state site on the first day of 2023.
What makes the PokerStars’ player pool even more notable is that no other operator has given any clue that it is working toward doing the same thing. The opportunity is there, and the other sites are in no rush to take advantage of it.
PokerStars is getting the attention because it worked for it.
With that, there are some new developments to that shared player pool and some revealing information from the North American Managing Director for PokerStars.
Successful PSPC Online
As soon as the PokerStars player pools in Michigan and New Jersey combined, PokerStars USA announced that it would run a mini version of the PokerStars Players Championship, the massive high-stakes live event running at the end of January and into February in the Bahamas. The PSPC Online would run 85 events from January 13-30 with $2.5M in guarantees.
They did just that. Many of the events hit and exceeded their guarantees. Others did not.
The result of the Main Event was:
-Event 77: $250 buy-in Main Event = 1140 entries (689 players & 451 reentries) / $300K prize pool
—TTV JThrizz won $48,202.68 for first place
The buy-in for the Main Event was $233 + $17. Those buy-ins for the 1,140 entries only added up to $265,620. With the guarantee of $300K, PokerStars added $34,380 to that prize pool to keep its promise.
Confirmed new baby run good is legit! @PokerStarsUSA My 24 day old Axel is asking about the hardware 🏆 for the PSPC Main Event CHAMP!?! https://t.co/ZAoppOqzhY pic.twitter.com/dw8VtnMssZ
— Jesse Peace (@JThrizz_) February 3, 2023
Zooms and Dailies
By the end of January, PokerStars USA had launched some Zoom tournaments on the joint platform. The fast-fold poker variant was in test mode as of January 23 to see how players reacted to it.
It went well enough to then offer a week of Zoom from February 8-15. They offered two-times the regular rewards points for starting a Zoom. Time will tell how the games did and if they will return.
Meanwhile, at the start of February, the combined Michigan-New Jersey site launched a new set of regular tournaments – dailies and weeklies – each with guarantees. And the new weekly guarantee for said tournaments was $1M.
The daily buy-ins range from $5 to $250, and the nightly buy-ins hold in the $25-$50 area.
The new daily/nightly tournaments are:
-6pm: $25 Mini Nightly Stars ($7.5K GTD)
-6:30pm: $50 Nightly Stars Knockout ($12.5K GTD)
-7pm: $50 Nightly Stars ($12.5K GTD)
And the new weekly tournaments are:
-Sunday at 6pm: $100 Sunday Special ($65K GTD)
-Monday at 8pm: $100 Battle Royale ($20K GTD)
-Tuesday at 8pm: $100 Super Tuesday ($20K GTD)
-Wednesday at 8pm: $100 Wednesday Storm ($22.5K GTD)
-Thursday at 8pm: $100 Thursday Thrill ($25K GTD)
-Friday at 8pm: $100 Friday Night Fight PKO ($22.5K GTD)
-Saturday at 8pm: $100 Deepstack Saturday ($20K GTD)
PokerStars North American Managing Director Severin Rasset noted that the new tournaments on the daily and weekly lineups bring the weekly guarantees up to $1M. “The combined liquidity of NJ and MI enables us to reinforce our weekly schedule with more tournaments available every day, a wider variety of buy-ins, bigger guarantees, and giving our players the best available in the market.”
PokerStars USA Insight
Speaking of Rasset, he sat down with PokerNews in the Bahamas during the recent PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and PSPC to chat about poker in North America.
He noted that the newfound liquidity between Michigan and New Jersey made a big difference and showed the potential of the market. This was the first combination for PokerStars across state lines in the new-ish United States online poker market.
Rasset addressed Pennsylvania, the state that has yet to sign the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA). “If it was up to me, we’d do it tomorrow,” he said.
PokerStars is apparently using their new success from combining two markets to show the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board the potential for increasing revenue. Rasset is certain that Pennsylvania will eventually join, though, and when they do, PokerStars will aim to be the first to pull that market into the Michigan-New Jersey player pool.
Rasset is also working with the Nevada regulator to try to enter that market. For many years, WSOP has had a monopoly on that state’s online poker business.
Further, he sees hope for online poker growth in the next three to five years. With many states willing to discuss online poker – New York and Indiana, for example – he believes they will legalize the game.
