There’s plenty going on in the world of regulated online poker in the US with three states up and running as of November 2013. Those states are Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey and there are plenty of other states that are at least thinking about doing the same thing, so what does that mean for the online poker player in the US? In all honesty...not a great deal as unless you live in one of those states then it makes no odds to you at all, and even if you do, you will find a limited offering, and small amounts of players with OK liquidity at the smaller stakes real money Texas hold’em tables and pretty small guaranteed tournaments. At present regulated US poker rooms simply cannot compete with the large offshore rooms that offer huge guaranteed tournaments, sit n go tourneys that fill up extremely quickly and plenty of action at the cash games tables.
Why Can’t the Regulated US Rooms Compete?
It simply comes down to the numbers of players that are actually allowed to play...it really is that simple. As a poker player you will know that it takes players at tables to make great cash games and it takes large player pools in tournaments to create the huge prize pools and the big cash wins. Bovada example runs a $100,000 guaranteed tourney every Sunday, it’s hard to beat that. Let’s take Nevada as an example. Nevada has a population of around 3 million that are allowed onto the tables at its 2 regulated rooms. Those rooms are Ultimate Poker and WSOP.com and anyone who wishes to play online poker can use either of those rooms, as long as they are phsically located in Nevada and over 21. Nevada is not a large state and from it’s entire population, only a small percentage will wish to play online poker, and therefore split that between the 2 rooms and you are not left with many players. The same kind of thing is due to happen in New Jersey, with all 12 land based casinos in Atlantic City holding licenses and will battle it out for the players that exist within its 9 million population. There is simply not enough people in individual states to create a working online poker model....at least until poker is regulated in a different way.
The Need for Interstate Deals
There is a need for states that offer online poker to get together, and this simply has to happen in the future for a regulated model to work. Small state populations split between many online poker rooms will just not work...that has been known from the off. States need to join forces and pool their players together creating larger player pools which will lead to bigger tourneys, better cash games and sit n go’s that fill up swiftly. There is of course talk of deals between states and Nevada has stated that it will join forces with other states, however when that will happen is unknown, and at the moment the truth is that for any kind of action then players should look at Bovada Poker, Carbon Poker or Americas Cardroom.
