Nevada Governor Predicts Pool Sharing With Delaware Within Six Weeks

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Thursday, February 26th, 2015 | Written by Shane Larson

Back in February 2014, an interstate online poker compact was signed between Nevada and Delaware allowing the two states to share their player liquidity. At the time, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval expressed optimism the compact could launch by the summer, but one year later and there are still no signs of his prediction becoming a reality. Now, however, Sandoval has assumed the role of seer once more, and this week described the player liquidity move as “imminent” and ready to go live within “four to six weeks”.

iPoker In Desperate Need Of Compact

Sandoval blamed the delay in implementing the Nevada/Delaware Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA) on “technical glitches”, but apparently Nevada gaming regulators are now convinced the system is almost ready to go. The news the two states are about to combine their respective online poker markets couldn’t come sooner for the two states, either, as both states have suffered online gaming revenues far below initial estimates made pre-regulation.

Apart from overly zealous politicians, another key reason behind the disappointing results is the relatively small size of Delaware and Nevada’s state populations compared to the USA’s other regulated state of New Jersey with almost $9 million residents, and roughly $11 million in monthly iGaming revenues. By contrast Nevada ($2.84m people) has generated around $1 million in monthly revenues, and Delaware (935k people) around $150,000.

888 To Dominate US Online Poker Landscape

Currently, 888 powers all three of Delaware’s online gambling sites, as well as Nevada’s only viable poker site of WSOP.com, thus facilitating a future transition towards a shared poker network using the same online gambling software. Once the MSIGA is launched, these sites will subsequently be hosted on the 888 powered All American Poker Network (AAPN). As a foretaste of what is to come, last month WSOP.com and 888Poker’s All American Poker Network (AAPN) in New Jersey partially combined their player pools, yielding instantaneous results as both WSOP.com and 888poker subsequently overtook Party Borgata as the Garden State’s busiest sites. The “imminent” MSIGA in Nevada/Delaware should therefore make 888 an even more dominant force in the USA’s online poker market.

Motivation For Other States To Join

While Nevada may not immediately benefit from the interstate poker-only compact in the same way as Delaware is likely to from gaining access to Nevada’s online poker liquidity, in the long run both states would benefit equally if other US states were motivated by positive results to pass regulation of their own and join the compact. As Delaware’s Dover Downs Casino CEO Ed Sutor said last year after the interstate compact was announced:

“What that means, quite simply, is we’ll have a lot more players who can come into the poker room.. There will be more games available at different denominations. And that should help both states.. It would be very helpful if New Jersey got into our compact, not only for us, but for them. They need more players, as well.”

Up until now, Nevada has had an average of just 125 daily cash game players on the site taken over a six-month period, while for Delaware that figure drops to just 10 players. Needless to say, many players may have opted not to play the game due to the limited numbers of poker players to compete against, but with greater liquidity comes a wider variety of choices, and hopeful a higher level of excitement for the game.

California A Game-Changer

It has been estimated by the Poker Players Alliance that around 15 million Americans regularly play real-money internet poker on unregulated sites, millions of whom hail from California. With four online poker bills currently introduced in the state Legislature (AB 9, AB 167, AB 431 and SB278) and lawmakers deciding whether to legalize online poker, and if they should also permit interstate pool-sharing, there now exists greater potential than ever to set the foundations for a resurgent US online poker ecology post- Black Friday.

One reason why the Golden State may opt not to pursue an online poker compact with other states, however, would be because the country’s largest and wealthiest state is more likely to be able to maintain a viable poker ecology on its own without outside help. According to coalition of California tribes analysis, for instance, a regulated intrastate internet poker industry could yield around $845 million annually for the state government, as well as creating more than 2,600 new jobs within a five year period.