Wanted to follow-up on this. I previously thought (see Post #14) that any form of "rubbing it in" or criticizing a political opponent to the past (2018) online poker/iGaming bills was not a good idea. In your defense, others in the industry are also squaring-up on social media atm it seems.

Here is a Tweet from GeoComply Government Affairs liaison John Pappas which addresses the fact that the Michigan online poker player pool will be ring-fenced (aka "intrastate"). He suggests that regulations and/or legislation may potentially be able to "fix" the player pooling issue at some point in the future.



Here is John's testimony before Michigan lawmakers from March of this year, which discusses regulated iGaming geo-location tools and urges lawmakers to outright ban Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in statewide, regulated U.S. iGaming markets. (audio issues from source)



FYI, TwoPlusTwo member Josem is an outspoken critic of outright bans for shared-viewer/VPN software in regulated iGaming markets, arguing that these proposed measures are "overreaching." It will be interesting in upcoming months to see what is decided once the MI Gaming Control Board is established and promulgates rules/regulations.

My poker dream of playing on a regulated site is closer and closer!

Here's a very interesting official summary analysis of the final bill that awaits Gov. Whitmer's signature. I think this document has a lot of informational value for those who will be playing real money online poker games in Michigan.

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/docume...SFA-4311-F.htm (Dec 11, 2019)

There are different tax breakdowns but basically it will be 20%28% of Gross Adjusted Receipts (not 'gross gaming revenue') for the first year of operation -- with the exception of platforms that are directly-administered by federally-compacted tribal gaming interests.

The initial licensing fee per operator is $100,000. It's annually renewable for an additional fee of $50,000 up to five years. According to the analysis FISCAL IMPACT section, "House Bill 4311 (S-1) would have an indeterminate fiscal impact on a variety of State funds and local units, including:

-- The School Aid Fund (SAF).
-- The City of Detroit.
-- The Michigan Agriculture Equine Industry Development Fund (AEIDF).
-- The Michigan Strategic Fund and Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MSF/MEDC).
-- Local units that receive Tribal gaming revenue sharing payments.
-- The Compulsive Gaming Prevention Fund.
-- The Michigan Gaming Control Board.
-- The First Responder Presumed Coverage Fund."

Would it be safe to assume that these tax rates will translate to higher rake from the platform providers? If so, could online poker ever be profitable with a rake of 25%, give or take?

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About a decade after black friday, almost 4 states have legalized poker. Nationwide poker in 2110.

Doubt the rake would ever be 25%. I would assume competition by platform providers would bring the rake down to a somewhat acceptable level.

These things do get momentum and start to snowball, though. Look at how many states have legalized casino gambling now when not long ago it was pretty much limited to Nevada and New Jersey (almost half the states without even counting those with only native American casinos). The same already happened with gay marriage, is happening now with marijuana, and it looks like it's finally starting to happen with online poker.

Even if it it doesn't become fully nationwide for a long time (or ever), a majority of the states would make the player pools much like they were pre-Black Friday. The games will never be that soft again, but they will be softer than ROW as long as it's confined to interstate compacts. That should still make the games profitable for serious players and fun for recs.

Well its actually almost 6 states that have legalized it. 4 have it up and running. Though Im not sure whats going on with west Virginia.

It also looks like Kentucky actually has a good shot and getting it going.

I don't suppose there has been any talk about changing Michigan's gambling tax laws? The idea of casual players having to pay state tax on every winning session but being unable to deduct losing sessions is beyond horrific.

20% - 28% is a pretty standard range for gambling tax rates in Europe. Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Spain all have taxes in this area. They are mostly pretty competitive markets with multiple offers, and the rake is fairly typical, maybe fractionally higher in some cases (+ your rewards might be a bit lower). But it is well within "normal" bounds. I wouldn't worry.

A tribe owned casino must be the first to open, according to a friend who worked on the bill.

Firekeeper's is waiting in the wings.

To the best of his forecasting abilities, he thinks that will take a year to launch.

Are all of the regulated states ring-fenced right now? Or are any of them combined with each other? As in, are Nevada and New Jersey sharing player pools? Or were they in the past, but not anymore? Or were they not in the past, but are about to be sharing soon?

I want to know what the climate surrounding both the past and expectation of near-future look like when it comes to ring-fencing. Depending on the answer to that question, I think these new states getting legalized could either be a good thing, or possibly even a bad thing (if it has all been ring-fenced for every state so far and looking to stay that way for each new state heading into the future).

Only Pennsylvania's online poker is ring-fenced currently. The other three states that offer regulated online poker (New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware) are compacted through the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA).

Nevada and New Jersey share player pools, but it's only on WSOP dot-com because it's the only site currently available in Nevada. PokerStars is considered a "Bad Actor" in that state. If another operator were to eventually enter Nevada (such as partypoker, whose parent company GVC was granted a license to enter NV online poker market earlier this year), then that company would theoretically be able to likewise link its NV product to players in New Jersey under MSIGA -- depending on how officials/regulators interpret the agreement's compliance with the Wire Act.

The current Nevada market is online poker only (WSOP NV doesn't offer online slots/blackjack/etc). It's a relatively small market (total pop. 3 million) and likely the least desirable for other states to compact with due to the perceived skill-based composition of NV's general player pool compared to elsewhere. NV really isn't large enough to support a ring-fenced online poker market imo, except during WSOP in Vegas. Delaware has a total population of over 1 million, and might have only a table or two of total action during peak times w/o the existing compact with NJ/NV.

The "near-future" look of U.S. online poker ring-fencing isn't very good because of the Wire Act. If incoming states see a clear value/necessity to compacting online poker games at some point in the future, they perhaps could arrange that through regulation/legislation, but again -- they'd probably want to be sure from both a legal and common sense perspective before doing so.

Right now, only four (of the 48 continental) states offer regulated online poker games in the U.S.

Pennsylvania (PokerStars/Mount Airy only)
Nevada (WSOP/888 only)
Delaware (WSOP/888 only)
New Jersey (PokerStars/Resorts, WSOP/888, partypoker/Borgata)

I say "continental" because state-regulated Hawaii and Alaska online poker are even a bigger stretch than Delaware in terms of being worthwhile as a ring-fenced market. You'll also notice a theme here in that the poker sites need to form partnerships with existing land-based casinos before entering each state's online poker market. Expect that trend to continue.

IMO it's common sense that most states simply won't be able to support a restricted, ring-fenced online poker product -- so eventually further compacting will have to be the answer. There's no value for poker operators to enter smaller-populated states otherwise, especially in jurisdictions such as Louisiana where internet gaming would require parish-by-parish approval before becoming regulated. Imagine being logged-in to a poker site on your phone, driving a mile to a gas station, and being geo-blocked b/c you're no longer physically located within an authorized county... that's the level of ridiculousness you'd see in some states due to super-localized voter referendum mandates.

I'd say the smart money is on cooler heads eventually prevailing, and that there will be a legitimate, "shared liquidity" U.S. online poker market between five or more states within 2-3 years. I could see perhaps a couple of smaller states at the very least creating some formal infrastructure for regulating online poker in the meantime, and then waiting until there's more clarity for cross-state compacting before going "live" with a product.

Many states simply aren't going to authorize online poker (or any form of internet gambling) in the next decade. However, that may not be that important in the long run due to mainstream availability/acknowledgement of the product -- just like it doesn't mean much in terms of "vicinity" for states where land-based interests stack businesses along virtual borders that are often closer in proximity to out-of-state clientele (where casinos aren't licensed) than to customers in their own state.

Anything to increase the popularity of poker is a very good thing

HI
In your opinion which states will be the next 5 to regulate online gambling/poker?

Another big issue is the difference in the gaming laws between the states. Even if Stars were not considered a bad actor in Nevada and had a site there, it couldn’t share pools with the other states unless it removed the ability to use HUDs in all the states like WSOP did.

Not counting Michigan/West Virginia/Arkansas -- I'll guess that the next five will be: Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Ohio, and New York by 2025. That's 100% guessing though. I really don't know and there are others who would have better guesses than mine.

California/Illinois/New York/Texas/Florida coming on board would all be big wins (since those are the five largest remaining states by population).

Why the comment about not counting West Virginia/Arkansas? Did they recently pass some new online poker legislation the way Michigan did or something?

https://www.onlinepokerreport.com/us/wv/
I'm not aware of any movement towards legalizing online poker in Arkansas.

I wasn't either until Steve Ruddock pointed this out a couple of months ago.

https://www.bettingusa.com/online-poker-legal-us/

I covered the Arkansas casino referendum in a separate July 2018 article, but didn't realize online poker was part of that initiative until recently.

You dream very modestly.

Sign the damn bill already Gretchen. The anticipation is killing me.

Is there any chance that if we get X number of states, it would snowball into a federal bill?

GG Michigan! We had zero new states in 5 years, now have potentially 3 new ones in a year. Fall you dominoes!!!