I agree that the 'who' is important. It was Governor Christie who announced the NJ player pool would be merged with NV in agreement with the governors of NV and DE. Neither NJ nor NV is about to cede control of their in-state operations to the other, and so the commitment is here from day 1 to revamp any language in any law or statute that might preclude the pool sharing from happening. And I doubt there's much if any opposition to the pooling in the state legislatures.

It shouldn't hurt implementation that WSOP/888 is currently operating in all three states.

"They" would be a combo of state law and NJ Gaming Regs

Law sets general parameters/terms. Gaming Commissions are authorized to establish and monitor the standards/regulations

Here if you want all the details.

Look under The Act to see NJ law

Look under The Regulations to see NJ CCC's implementation of that law with additional rules/standards for operators.

http://www.nj.gov/casinos/law/overview/

Hopefully PA will get in on interstate pooling too and then NY will all the more asinine not having passed an online poker bill already.

They had the same sort of agreement struck and announced between NJ and the UK. They could not finalize the deal despite all the NJ operators also being active in the UK.

http://pokerfuse.com/news/law-and-re...iquidity-pool/

The following quote is from David Rebuck, Director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement:

Unless or until there is a willingness within NJ to amend their state constitution any deal involving NJ is their way or the highway. This will severely limit the number of other jurisdictions that will be willing to do business with them.

Somewhat confusing is that right after acknowledging the elephant in the room the author of the Pokerfuse article then continues on to completely ignore it and talk about having pooled satellites to next summer's WSOP. Optimism is nice but sorry it's most likely misplaced here.

Thanks to PTLou for the link to the NJ info.

Pennsylvania iGambling Bill Signed into Law

"Pennsylvania will also be uniquely placed to join and take immediate advantage of an online poker sharing compact agreed between the other regulated states earlier this month."

http://www.onlinepoker.net/poker-new...into-law/38046

A couple of articles out today that touch on US interstate poker. First up we have USPoker, this is mostly some projections for volume and market share under different scenarios. Ruddoch continues to ignore the New Jersey problem. One new to me point here is that in Delaware there is a contractual monopoly with 888.

https://www.uspoker.com/blog/us-onli...ate/19808/amp/

Next Part Time Poker has a story that mostly focuses on Pennsylvania.

http://www.parttimepoker.com/online-...a-priority/amp

But at the end of the article they make the following observations:

make america great again and legalise poker, no more goverments monopoly

hodl online poker in the us

This seems like big news on the US legislative front. The New Jersey state Senate now has a bill to consider from Sen. Lesniak that would allow players within the state to join international player pools:

“This bill allows the division to permit Internet gaming equipment to be located outside of Atlantic City if the division deems it necessary to facilitate the conduct of international Internet wagering.”

https://www.onlinepokerreport.com/27...ional-pooling/

I think this is a terrible step in the wrong direction for the U.S. market. This seems to open to door for international share liquidity, which on the surface seems like a great thing. However, online sites have proven to be mostly inadequate and complacent when it comes to various forms of cheating. On top of that, does anybody want the state of the ROW games to permeate the U.S. market? I know things are moving slow, but with PA coming on board and most likely partnering with NJ, DE and NV , we seem like we're finally headed in the right direction. I think that the only way to effectively police games is to have a regulated market where there are stiff criminal penalties for those who do cheat. You can't enforce that on somebody from Russia who is playing on a N.J. site. I hope that i'm just misunderstanding how this would work.

This is at least an indication of the need to move in the right direction but fails on a couple of points.

1) The requirement to have gaming servers in AC is ingrained in the NJ State Constitution. Therefore the proposed bill would be unconstitutional if made law.

2) The proposed changes are required to support interstate pooling as well as international.

What the bill is proposing is required but is not capable of achieving its aims, it must be paired with or preceded by a state constitutional amendment, which I believe would have to go before the voters to pass.

Yeah you are misunderstanding pretty much everything.

The way the NJ legislature got around the constitutional requirement for all NJ gambling to take place in Atlantic City was to simply declare in the legislation that online gambling takes place at the location of the servers in Atlantic City, not the location of the players. I don't see why they can't just declare in new legislation that players located outside New Jersey aren't gambling in NJ when they play against NJ players online, thereby once again skirting the constitution.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using 2+2 Forums

That does not solve the problem. Online poker is not built on a distributed computing model. Under the current condition for say NJ PokerStars players to play against ROW players then PokerStars would have to relocate all their servers from Isle of Man to NJ. That would never happen. That is why the previous negotiations with UKGC broke down.

All other multi jurisdiction agreements are based on the principal of reciprocity. For example the UKGC will allow UK players to play on an operator that is based in another jurisdiction provided that other jurisdiction also will allow their players to play on UK based sites. The foreign operator still has to meet the standards set by the UKGC and they have to pay the UGGC based on the activity of UK players but the UKGC does not control where the game servers are located. If NJ players are in the game the servers must be in AC.

The latest proposal out of Michigan dictates that servers must be located in the casino! US legislators just continue to set the industry up for failure due to their complete lack of understanding of how things work and an unwillingness to look at what works elsewhere.

The good news is that in the coming months or years, none of this will matter with the advent of a working decentralized model.


I hope.

How about the foreign operator sets up a routing server in Atlantic City that "accepts" the NJ player action and routes it on to the gaming server overseas. The NJ legislators just have to pass a bill that declares that the gambling takes place in Atlantic City because that's where the wager is "accepted". Sort of like Off Track Betting - the wagers take place in Atlantic City, but the races don't.

They could attempt to pass such a bill, but it probably would not stand up to court challenge. There are lots of unconstitutional laws on the books. They work until someone takes it to court and a judge rules it as being unconstitutional. But let's be realistic nothing gambling related slips in under the radar. The state of NJ has already set the precident that the location of the actual gaming server, ie. the RNG and determination of the outcome of the game, must be in AC. They are not likely to get away with saying something different now. If they do the operators may be wary of taking part based on shakey legal grounds that could be pulled out from under them at any time.

It's a constitutional problem, it needs a constitutional solution. As I pointed out before Michigan is about to make the exact same mistake, but their mistake is much easier to solve than the NJ one.

It should also be noted the last NJ constitutional amendment to expand gambling outside of AC failed when it went before the voters. So it will probably take a very norrowly worded online only amendment that is supported by a well funded PR campaign to get passed. The good news is the next election cycle is less than a year away but it would have to get started soon. Also if NJ wins their sports betting case that is currently before the Supreme Court that may add some motivation to make some sort of changes that could facilitate both that and poker.

Has anyone heard anything new in regards to the states version of Shared Online Player Pools? I was excited when this was announced, and new it would take a few months, but I've literally heard nothing since 2017.

Hi ImIIawesome,

Thanks for the bump. I've been keeping an eye out for updates on US "shared liquidity" news myself. I haven't heard anything meaningful on this topic since the OCT 2017 press release that NJ/NV/DE had agreed to terms.

If I run into some articles that provide concrete updates on this (or more info on Pennsylvania potentially joining this deal), I'll be sure to post it here. If anyone on the board has come across updated material and could post, that would be great too.

There's this article from Feb and a bit of talk in this thread from the internet poker forum. Not much tho

According to people at WSOP the combined pool will start May 1st, NJ/DE/NV. 5 online bracelet events during the WSOP events. All players will have to open new accounts when the pool is combined. Should be great timing for WSOP getting started before the Series start but having to open new accounts might be a nightmare

Why have to open new account?
Who specifically did you hear this from?

Is WSOP.com On The Cusp Of A Three-State Online Poker Network? It Might Need To Be

Article dated today.

https://www.onlinepokerreport.com/29...-poker-update/


"WSOP.com Nevada updates
Online poker player pooling between Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware is expected to be a reality prior to the start of the live World Series of Poker tournament this year, which gets underway on May 29 and runs through July 17."

https://www.onlinepokerreport.com/ws...-poker-review/

Don't want to divulge name but a well known WSOP person.

I think new accounts have to be opened because of new servers manned in NJ not in NV and no conflict with S/N

Only hiccup could be server and location issues that could set this back but I know the target date is MAY 1ST
Edit====
Just 4 online bracelets

big push this summer with guarantees, deposit bonus...etc. Everyone will have to get a new account. Setting up a cage in lambada room to handle the additional volume.

Any word on using Hold em manager, etc.?

HEM support has told me HEM doesn't work on that site. This was 2-3 months ago.