When it was first introduced by DraftKings in late 2024, Electric Poker seemed like a promising product that could lead the way for one of the country’s biggest sports betting operators to enter the peer-to-peer poker market.
Electric Poker first launched in Michigan, before being introduced to players in Pennsylvania in October 2024 and New Jersey in March 2025.
Electric Poker featured an ultra-fast blind structure, three-handed play, randomized prizes, and mandatory all-ins after three levels of play. It promised action, with one foot in the world of traditional gambling and another in the world of skill-based poker play.
Initial response from players was mostly positive, although the mandatory all-in format bothered many from the get-go. Today, a year and a half later, Electric Poker’s revenue has fallen to just 5% of the initial numbers, making the dreams of DraftKings expanding further into online poker seem distant.
We took a look at all the things that went wrong for Electric Poker since its launch, and found three main areas DraftKings Poker could improve upon in an effort to bring the format back to life.
The Mandatory All-In Format Has to Go
Jackpot sit and goes have been among the most popular tournament poker formats for years, with major online poker operators across all markets, including the likes of GGPoker and PokerStars, all offering them in one form or another.
Yet, none of these tournament formats shares Electric Poker’s mandatory all-in provision, which has been a staple of this game since its launch. Once players enter “Electric Mode”, they are forced to go all-in every hand.
While the initial response of the players across the three states where Electric Poker launched was mostly positive, many disliked Electric Mode, as they believed it diminished skill and made the game feel more like gambling or a crapshoot than a real poker game.
While the Electric Mode is currently an essential part of the game, DraftKings could get rid of it and create Electric Poker games more similar to regular jackpot SNGs available at other sites.
For most serious poker players, this would make the game much more appealing, as being in control of when and how they bet their chips is one of the main reasons most players play poker instead of casino games.
Electric Poker Shouldn’t Be Bunched Up with Casino Games
Since the day it launched, Electric Poker has been featured in the DraftKings casino section, along with casino poker games like Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Casino Stud, and Three Card Poker.
Yet, Electric Poker is significantly different than these games, as it is a peer-to-peer poker game not played against the house. As a real P2P poker game, its place is not with the casino games.
When it first launched, Electric Poker was at least featured prominently in the casino, as it was one of the newest games in the lobby. Today, it is buried under hundreds of slots, table games, and other casino game types, and is mostly found only by players specifically looking for it.
If DraftKings is to bring Electric Poker back to life, it should be given an exclusive place in the casino lobby, away from all the gambling games. Like other poker games, Electric Poker should not be viewed as a revenue generator, but rather a game that caters to the players’ desires to compete with their peers.
Should Electric Poker, and potentially other DraftKings poker products, be featured separately from the gambling games, the operator could eventually build up a base of players who visit the casino for poker and generate plenty of extra revenue by delving into other games as well.
Multi-State Liquidity Could Enhance Action
Currently, DraftKings runs Electric Poker games in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, three states that are signatories of MSIGA, allowing poker operators to share liquidity across state borders.
What this means in practice is that DraftKings could merge its Electric Poker pool across the three states, potentially making the games start faster and run more often.
Since Electric Poker games last only a few minutes, players should be able to register a game and start playing almost instantly, as is the case with jackpot SNGs on other platforms.
Merging the player pools of the three states would likely help shorten the average time it takes for an Electric Poker game to start, which could lead to more liquidity and players sticking around to play many games in one sitting.
As things currently stand, many players are likely to give up on waiting and play a different game instead, if they are forced to wait for 10 minutes only to play a 3-minute SNG.
Will DraftKings Poker Ever Get Off the Ground
A couple of years ago, it seemed like DraftKings was perfectly content to stay out of online poker and leave that portion of the market to other operators.
However, since launching Electric Poker, DraftKings has sponsored the Celebrity Poker Tour and launched its own poker integrity team, suggesting at least some interest in being a part of the US online poker market.
While online poker is an exciting way to attract a specific group of players to a brand, it has historically generated only a small portion of the overall iGaming revenue for the US operators, which is likely a part of the reason DraftKings has been holding back.
Should the operator decide to give poker a bigger chance, a revival of Electric Poker would likely be the first step, followed by launches of other online poker products and formats, and potentially a standalone online poker app at some point in the future.
