It's only been a couple weeks since Pennsylvania's addition to the shared liquidity pool of online poker in the United States, but BetMGM Poker has hit the ground running.
PokerOrg spoke with BetMGM Poker's Senior Manager of Poker Marketing Will O'Connor to learn more about the site's preparations for the merger, how the added liquidity will affect its player base, and an exciting summer ahead.
What sort of preparations were made for Pennsylvania’s addition to the online shared liquidity pool at BetMGM?
I think a lot of our preparation work for what was going to happen in Pennsylvania started six months ago or so when we were nearing our New Jersey and Michigan merger. Not only from a promotional standpoint, but also tech readiness, product readiness, and making sure we were working with the regulators early and often to be ready when the opportunity came.
Historically, BetMGM has found itself trailing with some of the other mergers and we’ve seen that negative whiplash to our business. We put our foot down last year and said, ‘Let’s not have that be the case’ because we knew there were opportunities coming. Post-merger, the numbers are just flying off the board – whether it’s from a cash game perspective or tournament guarantees. We thought it was going to be big and it’s beating even some of our high watermark projections.
Pennsylvania feels like one of the biggest dominos to fall – do you see this as a possible precursor to regulation in other states or even nation-wide?
I sure hope so. I think if I had to rank all of the dominos, Pennsylvania would be up there. I think if we took a step back and look at what this is going to do, in terms of a dollar and cents change for the size of the market, you would be hard pressed to find another market that has grown, or will grow, as quickly as Pennsylvania post-merger.
PA governor Josh Shapiro speaks with Mori Eskandani about online poker. The governor of Pennsylvania did a livestream here and he was mentioning all of the reasons online poker should be allowed and then he pivoted to here's what it'll do for our state. That's what other states will be looking at. I really hope this huge wave of momentum can continue and translate to high revenue because I think that's what will sell it to the next state, or the next few states, to get us to larger liquidity pools. I think that's going to be an important driver.
What does the merger mean for players on your site?
The immediate aftermath of the shared liquidity gave us high watermarks across everything – cash games, tournament turnouts, tournament guarantees, etc.
During the first weekend of May, we ran a May Millions series on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We've never been able to put a million dollars into a week-long series and now we're doing it over the course of a weekend. On Thursday night, we set the record for the biggest-ever win on BetMGM Poker in our $2,500 Super High Roller. That record stood for 72 hours before Sunday's winner in a $1,000 event broke the record again.
That's not to say that every weekend we're going to be breaking records, but it gives us so much momentum and so much confidence that these are good events – they're priced correctly, they're exceeding guarantees, we're qualifying enough players in.
It's going to be a big summer for BetMGM Poker live events – can you tell us about what's on the schedule?
Yeah, so this will be our fourth year hosting the BetMGM Poker Championship as part of the ARIA Poker Classic. Much like the first weekend of shared liquidity, during the first few years we were breaking records. The first year we had a $1M guarantee, the second year we had $2M, the third year we had $3M. We're sticking with that $3M number this year, but the growth of the event has been pretty steady and consistent.
Daniel Maor won the 2024 BetMGM Poker Championship. We're also sponsoring the Mixed Games Festival run by Card Player Lifestyle and Robbie Strazynski at the Bellagio. And, listen, part of BetMGM's not-so-secret sauce is our connection to MGM Resorts and we've done a really good job of highlighting the highest levels at those events – whether it be the ARIA Poker Classic BetMGM Championship or the Borgata Poker Opens.
This is the first time we get to sponsor anything outside of those events. And in terms of the poker community side of things, I think the Mixed Games Festival is 'one-of-one' in that sense. When they were at Bellagio last year, we were kind of thinking, 'If they're going back there, let's make sure that we're involved and helping them prepare'. So, very early on in the planning process, we came together with the Bellagio team, with Robbie, and made sure that we were aligned.
What do you see as the root causes behind the slow crawl towards online poker regulation in the United States? Is it typical government bureaucracy or is there some kind of lobbying against the progress going on behind the scenes?
I wouldn't pin it on that angle because a lot of these brick-and-mortar properties also have a vested interest in the iGaming space. Whether there's enough forward vision to see that in a long-term plan or not – that's property to property, brand to brand.
There are tons of conversations and legislation that goes on that we have no clue about, right? What I hear, and what I listen to, are the early regulatory sessions where bills are being proposed or presented for the first time. And I always leave those sessions wondering, 'Do they get it? Do they understand what's being put forward?'.
I think if there's a market, or a group of people, that can explain it and educate other states, it's Pennsylvania. Something tells me that after we do this a few more times, it may get a little bit quicker.
