West Virginia just became the 5th state to legalize
Online poker. This is a big deal imo, im not sure why no ones talking about this on here. Maybe im the first one to see it.

Population 1.8 million so its tiny, but at this point who cares because we're up to 5 states now.

We just need them to fix that stupid doj ruling, and we will also need a solution to bots lol.



https://www.onlinepokerreport.com

Agree this is great news. However, wtf is with online poker legalization. Ugh it’s taking way too long. Is there any chance we have 50 states with legalized online poker in 10 years? I would guess no chance in hell but I’m hopeful progress will be made as more states allow online poker.

Sigh I miss full tilt/ Pokerstars days when we could play so many great gtn mtts on a Saturday and Sunday. It’s really depressing what happened to such a great online spread mehhhhhh

I agree and this sounds word for word like something i would say.

Im hopeful tho. We're up to 5 states, but more importantly, in my opinion, is that the US is going gambling crazy right now. Theres land casinos and sports betting being passed everywhere. And im guessing the legalilzed marijuana is helping us as well as far as law makers saying well screw it, lets legalize it.

We obv still have the problem of the new doj ruling and bots, but im hopeful these issues will get resolved. The bot stuff is the most concerning to me tho, out of those two.

I miss full tilt like crazy, but we honestly dont need 100k players online. If we can get 20 or so states linked up and have 30k players online at peak hours, man, we'll have a blast.

Im guessing 5-10 more years. Or never.

West Virginia formally legalizing iGaming is definitely great news for the industry.

The reason why it's not getting paraded so much in poker circles could be due to WV having a total population of less than 2 million. Nevada's population is 3 million, by comparison.

Without some clarification or other lifting of the apparent Wire Act restrictions on "interstate" or "shared liquidity" online poker games, operators may not see the value in acquiring an online poker license.

It's still unknown whether NJ/NV/DE will continue to share statewide player pools following June 14th, or whether they'll go back to being "sole-state" markets. Pennsylvania has already declared that it will be in-state only once those games launch.

And like Jkpoker10 says, the avg. time between an iGaming bill becoming enacted within a state and the games actually launching is over one year. So there will still be a considerable wait for WV players. Pennsylvania online poker was formally approved back in October 2017, but the actual games aren't expected to launch until this summer.

With that said, WV moving to pass online poker and casino games IS very good news for regulated statewide iGaming interests, and could be an important step to further spreading licensed online poker games in the U.S. But the games need to be "interstate" or "shared liquidity" in order to reach their potential.

Trust me, I think we will get all 50 states. There is too much easy money for the government to tax with online poker that i can’t see some states not allowing it in future. I feel sports betting is going to help make poker an easier sell also. I do think it’s kinda lame how sports betting has been a higher priority in comparison to poker.

Call me crazy but I feel there is more skill involved in online poker in comparison to sports betting. Ive heard NY (my home state) could potentially pass legislation for sports betting this year or at worst next year. Online poker seems much more up in the air and I would say the earliest it is passed will
Be next year while my rational self says probably 2-3 years to pass and then more time for it to be set up and open to the public (like dhubermex said).

I honestly don’t understand the negative stigma with poker and why the game is not legalized. I feel there is so much easy money to tax for the government that it seems like they should just skip over the thought of “gambling is bad” and just take the inflow of tax money poker will provide.

I really dislike how poker is. In an ideal world, there would be a big player pool of players from multiple states. However even if that happens, it still will not be as good as full tilt/ stars with the whole US and rest of the world. It really bugs me how one could easily grind sngs back in the day easily with tons of volume. At sites I’ve played at post Black Friday, sng volume has been horrible and one is lucky if they can get 1-2 sngs fully Reggd. I’m not a fan of cash games, and im a tourny player that doesn’t like the sick variance. Sngs seems like one of the best ways to build a roll however we may never get solid sng volume ever again which is obnoxious.

This IS good news. Online poker WILL be coming back BUT unfortunately it is just going to be a very long process reaching ever again a wide shared-pool of poker playing participants in the game. How long is anyone's guess (5 years or 50 years from now etc...???)

This is just completely false. In a the best case scenario, Hawaii never legalizes it, probably Utah neither.

and the amount of tax money from online poker is not what everyone likes to think it is, which is a big part of why states don't snap it up like people think they should

0% chance that all 50 states have it in 10 years. However, I would bet a decent amount that 10+ have it within 10 (potentially even 5 years) and think there is a good chance that there will be commingled pools with other nations within that timeline. Sports betting is the game changer. States that legalize sports are going to want to allow people to wager online and there is no reason to stop poker when you have online sports wagering.

The DOJ issue isn't going to stick because of the potential impact on multi-state lotteries.

1. Not a chance of all 50.
2. What you feel is what you feel and oddly why you probably do not bet sports. I disagree, but would never call you crazy for how you believe/feel differently. (I don't bet sports, but trust me it takes way more skill to do so successfully than does playing poker generally. In sportsbetting, you are playing against everyone on the other side of your wager; aside from some formats like Betfair, you don't post only what propositions you want and hope for a fish to bite.)
3. Your candor is refreshing.
4. So, you don't like cash games or MTTs, you want specifically SnGs ? Would you support legalization of cash games or MTTs, even if you do not get SnGs right out of the gate ?

Have you ever been to Wheeling or Charles Town tracks ?

If you want to fix the DOJ OLC position, vote the current administration out of office.

The solution to bots, if you consider that a game-killer, is to play live poker.

Ive never been to west virginia. Are those places you mentioned pretty fun?

As far as bots, right now in my opinion, having a few bots here and there isnt any different than having shills in the game, but a ton of bots is just annoying, and in 10 years i think there might be bots people can buy for low price that can crush the game, which would probably kill online poker.

Fortunately, party poker just caught 300 or so bots, so, i think the regulated sites can have a significant effect in stopping bots if they want to.

About as fun as Calvin Coolidge and only slightly less dead.