Top US Online Gambling Stories of 2017

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Tuesday, December 26th, 2017 | Written by Stephen Smith

This has been a great year for online gambling in the United States, so we thought we’d take a moment to look back on some of the major news stories and developments experienced by the industry in 2017.

Best Online Casino: Golden Nugget

The Golden Nugget was bound to become the country’s top online casino of the year after earning $5 million each month since February. In fact, the site accounted for a third of all online casino revenues generated by New Jersey in October, with only one other casino, Tropicana, recording a month with over $4 million in online casino revenue.

Furthermore, the Golden Nugget also became the state’s first online casino to host over 400 games in 2017. While others have since caught up, they certainly haven’t narrowed the gap in other aspects. The Golden Nugget, for instance, was the first casinos to run live-dealer games, and continues to be the sole site to do, accounting for some of the impressive revenue growth it recorded in 2017.

Best Online Series: PokerStars NJCOOP

2017 was hardly a great year for online poker tournaments in the United States. Nevertheless, the New Jersey Championship of Online Poker (NJCOOP) proved to be by far the best online series of the year simply by virtue of being the largest. In total, NJCOOP offered $1.2 million in prize money spread across 46 events, compared to the WSOP NJ Poker Classic (NJPC) with a $500,000 guarantee from 38 events, and the PartyPoker NJ Garden State Super Series (GSSS) with a $375,000 guarantee from 14 events.

Furthermore, most of the PokerStars tournament events reached their goals. While there were some exceptions for bigger buy-ins, the numbers remained strong, and overall more than 8,500 total entries generated around $1.5 million in prize money. Around $200,000 of this came from the $500 NJCOOP Main Event.

Best Achievement: Pennsylvania

Unless something incredible happens before the end of the year, the biggest surprise for 2017 has to be that Pennsylvania legalised online gambling. Anyone who knows about Pennsylvania understands what a tumultuous journey it has been. After all, the state has been trying to pass legislation for around five years now, and while a lot of progress had been made on the issue, continous halts were the norm during budget discussions, with iGaming legislation having failed to escape this minefield.

This year, however, progress was made after lawmakers finally passed a comprehensive gambling bill that also includes provisions for daily fantasy sports and sports betting, should the latter become federally legal. It’s not an ideal package, but iGaming made great progress and next year Pennsylvanian’s should be all set to launch its own regulated online gambling market.

Disappointment of the Year: New York

New York started the year in a position to push through online poker legislation, either through its budget or as a standalone law. It fell through on the budgetary front, though, although there was still the standalone online poker bill sponsored by Sen. John Bonacic.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go that well for the bill. Even though lawmakers have six months to consider bills, not a lot happens during those first five months, and while the bill passed the Assembly Racing, Wagering, and Gaming Committee, it failed to reach the floor. Moreover, it needed to pass through another two committees before the process finally ended, but ultimately ran out of time before the 2017 legislative session passed.

Best Surprise: NJ Joins the Online Poker Compact

Over a decade since the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was established, the USA’s online poker industry is still trying to find its footing. It’s been a long process and the first fully legal sites are still adjusting to their new home.

Four states in all have now legalized online poker, namely Nevada, Delaware, New Jersey in 2013, and now most recently Pennsylvania in 2017. Growth has been slow, though, as players have been restricted to playing games against players from their own state. This all changed when New Jersey finally joined an interstate agreement allowing players from member states to play against one another, therefore increasing the size of prize and player pools, and making the games more appealing.

While this represents a great achievement for online gambling in the United States, 2018 could be an even bigger year. Pennsylvania will launch its own games early in the year and is expected to join the aforementioned player sharing agreement. Adding a state with such a large population is bound to also make other states sitting on the fence take note and consider legalizing online gambling themselves. If New York finally gets on board then this will be a further great boon indeed for online poker in the US.