It’s a question that’s on the minds of online poker players from all over Pennsylvania:
Will Pennsylvania have multi-state poker before WSOP 2025?
Two weeks after the news broke that Pennsylvania would finally start the process of joining the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA), it’s unclear if the Keystone State will have shared liquidity by the time the largest and most popular US online poker tournament starts up again in late spring.
Several factors suggest Pennsylvania will be the multi-state gaming compact’s sixth member by the time WSOP 2025 starts. But regardless of whether Pennsylvania is in MSIGA or not, we expect WSOP Online will have a record number of bracelet events and tournaments in 2025.
Other States Blazed a Trail
To be clear, there is no official timeline for Pennsylvania to become an official member of MSIGA. Doug Harbach, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) warned as much shortly after Governor Josh Shapiro sent a letter to the regulator, asking it to start talks for joining the compact.
“Certainly, since there are 'roadmaps’ from other jurisdictions already operating within the compact, our hope is to use those and get PA operational as soon as viable,” Harbach told pokerfuse on October 14. “At the same time, every jurisdiction is different, so it is not possible at this early stage to predict the expediency of the complete launch process.”
Some of those “roadmaps” are several years old — Delaware and Nevada formed the nucleus of MSIGA back in 2014, and New Jersey joined three years later. Two states were much more recent additions — Michigan in May 2022, followed by West Virginia in November 2023.
From outside appearances, it didn’t look like it took Michigan very long to become a member of the gaming compact. In February 2022, just three months before it joined, Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB) were reportedly at odds over who should ultimately sign the membership documents.
It wasn’t clear if the other three members of MSIGA at the time (Delaware, Nevada, and New Jersey) had already been reviewing Michigan’s application, but there’s a very good chance that they weren’t. That would mean that Michigan became a full-fledged member in the span of about two or three months.
Consider that it was March 2022 before the MGCB started to inform online poker operators in the state that they would need clearance from the regulator before launching multi-state poker. MSIGA also acknowledged Michigan’s application for the first time in March, and said the compact’s members were considering several amendments designed to “streamline the process for future states to join the association.”
West Virginia surprised everyone when it joined MSIGA in late 2023. Even more surprising was the fact that officials with the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (NJDGE) helped their colleagues in the Mountain State navigate the process of becoming a member. But it’s not known when the process to join MSIGA officially kicked off.
That said, the cooperation that West Virginia got from New Jersey is a good sign that the streamlined process MSIGA said was under consideration in 2022 was now in full effect.
Timelines for Joining MSIGA Likely Shorter
Pennsylvania’s membership in MSIGA isn’t expected to take long for another reason — the other states in the compact are already very familiar with the Keystone State.
Regulators from the five states in the compact see their colleagues from Pennsylvania at every major gaming conference. PGCB officials often sit on the same panels as their counterparts from the MGCB and the NJDGE, and from the agencies in Delaware, Nevada, and West Virginia as well.
All six states have similar gaming regulations, in part because the six states built their regulations off of each other — with the newer states doing their due diligence and crafting igaming regulations that have been tried and tested elsewhere.
In short, it’s likely Pennsylvania’s gaming laws are already very well aligned with the other states in MSIGA. That means PA could potentially join the compact in short order.
When Pennsylvania does become an official member, Harbach said operators will not need permission from the PGCB before launching multi-state poker. That differs from Michigan, where the MGCB required operators to ask for clearance beforehand.
But not needing advance permission from the regulator also dramatically shortens the timeline for when multi-state poker will launch — and avoids the kind of frustration that was seen in Michigan, when the state had joined MSIGA but no operators had yet been approved for multi-state poker.
What WSOP 2025 Could Look Like
WSOP 2025 is expected to start in late May. A schedule hasn’t been released yet — a preliminary schedule is usually released in December.
While details of the upcoming tournament are unknown, it’s considered a given that it will feature 100 or more bracelet events for the first time. Last year’s edition of the tournament had 99 bracelet events, and in recent years WSOP has been adding a few events to the schedule every year.
Players from Michigan, Nevada, and New Jersey — which collectively form the three-state network WSOP Online — were able to compete in 30 online bracelet events during WSOP 2024. But in segregated Pennsylvania, players on WSOP PA were given a separate series that only had seven online bracelet events.
Assuming Pennsylvania is in MSIGA by the time WSOP 2025 starts, and that WSOP Online expands to include WSOP PA, there’s a very good chance that players from all four states would have access to 40 or perhaps even 50 online bracelet events.
