- BetRivers Poker is testing progressive knockout tournaments.
- The Multi-State Summer Series concludes this Sunday with a $30,000 guarantee.
- There’s no bounty tournament in the current series, but PKOs are expected to boost future prize pools.
- BetRivers Poker continues to update its features and enhance player experience.
BetRivers Poker, the brainchild of Phil Galfond and the latest entrant into the US regulated online poker market, has commenced testing of progressive knockout (PKO) tournaments.
Although it has been known for some time that the operator was working on developing PKOs and had plans to deploy them once its shared liquidity network launched, the feature is now finally starting to materialize.
For the first time, BetRivers has hosted bounty tournaments on its platform.
The tests consisted of only a couple of trial tournaments, each with a $1 buy-in and accessible exclusively to invited players. The test appears to have been a success, and a full rollout of PKOs, one of the most popular tournament formats in online poker today, now seems imminent.
BetRivers Poker officially launched in late October 2024, starting with Pennsylvania. Since then, it has expanded into three additional states: Michigan, Delaware and West Virginia and immediately rolled out shared liquidity across four states, becoming only the second operator in the US, after WSOP, to do so.
Week by week, BetRivers Poker has seen a steady increase in both tournament offerings and player traffic. Despite offering a full-featured poker client with many innovative capabilities, such as a built-in heads-up display (HUD), Dynamic Avatars, anonymized screen names, and more, it had been lacking support for bounty tournaments.
- The best online poker software in the US with the lowest cash game rake.
- Generous 100% deposit match bonus up to $1000 ($250 in Delaware)
- Now live for players in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Delaware & West Virginia!
Now, BetRivers Poker stands on the brink of finally introducing them.
“We’re thrilled to see players from four states sharing the same tables on BetRivers Poker,” Jason Senti, Head of Poker at Rush Street Interactive (RSI), parent company of the platform, told pokerfuse recently. “This milestone brings to life a vision our team has held since the early days of Run It Once Poker. It reflects RSI’s continued investment in poker and our team’s relentless dedication to creating the industry’s best player experience.”
Multi-State Summer Series Nears Climax
The timing of the PKO test is notable, as it coincides with BetRivers’ first-ever tournament series. Aptly named the Multi-State Summer Series (MSS), the festival boasts $200,000 in guaranteed prize money across 36 events. Each event is divided into two tiers — Gold and Silver — with the Silver version costing precisely one-tenth of its Gold-tier counterpart. Buy-ins begin at $1 and go up to $250 for the High Roller event.
The series concludes this Sunday with its flagship event, the Multi-State Main Event, featuring a $200 buy-in and a $30,000 guarantee. This marks the largest tournament BetRivers has held since its debut nearly one year ago.
So far, the series has performed strongly, with guarantees consistently being surpassed. However, the biggest test will come this Sunday, and based on current trends, it is expected that the $30,000 guarantee will be exceeded. In fact, this weekend alone, BetRivers will award at least $75,000 in guaranteed prize money, with nearly $60,000 of that being distributed on Sunday.
The series also includes a leaderboard competition for both tiers, offering over $5,000 in additional prizes.
Despite this, the entire series has run without any bounty tournaments, an unusual choice in the current online poker world, where nearly every operator offers them. Once PKOs go live, they are expected to significantly boost tournament prize pools.
Given that BetRivers Poker has already begun testing these tournaments with real-money players, a full launch appears to be just around the corner. When that happens, it is very likely that the next tournament series hosted by BetRivers will feature PKO events.
It remains unclear whether the operator is also testing Mystery Bounties, another popular knockout tournament variant that has gained immense traction in the online poker space, to the point where most major operators now offer them.
In the meantime, BetRivers Poker continues to roll out software updates on an almost biweekly basis, adding new features and enhancing the overall experience. The operator has also ramped up its marketing efforts, with promotions running across all game types.
“The early enthusiasm from players tells us we’re on the right path with our innovative features and player-first approach — and we believe this is just the start of something special,” Senti added.
