Hi! I’m Keith Becker, PokerNews Ambassador and Pennsylvania native, here with a PA poker update for January 2025. It’s an exciting time in America for the game we all know and love, and I’m excited to be bringing you state highlights every month.
What are the big issues and stories on everyone’s minds? Let’s get into it.
The biggest news, that I am SO happy to share, is that Pennsylvania has officially accepted the invitation to join the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA), which means we can look forward to pooling with our fellow poker players in EARLY 2025. I’ve worked for a long time to drum up support for this effort, so this is very special news to me, and a member of my grassroots Discord shared this email from Doug Harbach, Communications Director at the PGCB who stated, “Best guess at this point is a late 1st quarter or early second quarter launch in 2025.”
Just keep in mind that the timeline listed there is if all things go according to plan. Disaster is really unlikely at this point, but there is still some uncertainty in the timeline. Still, rejoice. Pennsylvania is joining multi-state poker. It is happening!
Pennsylvania Live Poker
At Philly Live! Casino this month we have the return of their successful Rags to Riches event, a $250 buy-in $100K GTD tournament aimed at a more recreational player base and likely to get a lot of entries, as well as their $500 MegaStacks earlier in the month with its $200K guaranteed prize pool.
Over at Rivers Poker Room, we see the return of their holiday deepstack series in January, a small lower buy-in series also aimed at that recreational player base. They also ran this series in December.
One client doing things both online and live this month is BetMGM, where we see satellites and direct registration available for the Winter Poker Open at the Borgata in Atlantic City. The Borgata is in New Jersey, but depending on where you live in Pennsylvania it can be just as accessible as the other brick-and-mortar casinos here in the Keystone State.
Speaking of BetMGM, they recently wrapped up their New Year Knockout Series, a PKO-only series of 13 tournaments. The biggest event was taken down by Pennsylvania regular “ZetaPoker”, who won the $250 buy-in event for over $6,000.
Rival client PokerStars ran some massive events of their own in the recent Red Spade tournaments. The $100 Red Spade Special saw almost 1,600 entrants and was taken down by “NellieKane” for a $26K score. Meanwhile the $1K Red Spade High Roller saw 127 entries and ended in a similar $27K score for “gobirdz69420”. And finally, the $10 Red Spade Rumble got 2,248 entries, ending in a chop and overlaying by around $30K as it boasted a staggering $50,000 guaranteed prize pool. PokerStars is looking at potentially running these Red Spade events every six or seven weeks, so keep your eyes open for those.
Are you looking for a change of pace? Sick of hypers, super turbos, super hyper turbo blitz mania? Well, check out Global Poker this month. They’re running their MonsterStack Series, a poker tournament series designed to have larger stacks and longer blind levels, giving you the time to play patient, battle it out and come out on top in the end. I got a MonsterStack Series trophy last time around and it is a beauty. If you want to get in there for your chance to get one of these babies and more head on over to GlobalPoker.com.
And on WSOP PA there is currently another Circuit series underway with 12 rings up for grabs. And if that’s not enough, as they do every year WSOP is back to offering DEPOSITOR FREEROLL events to the $10,000 WSOP Main. If you want a free chance to play in poker’s most famous MTT, log onto WSOP and get in there.
Personally, I’ve been playing on BetRivers Poker. I’m sponsored to play there, but while in the past poker clients have reached out to me, I proactively contacted BetRivers. Let me tell you why. I have always admired Phil Galfond, his vision for poker and giving rewards back to the players, and what he wants to do with a poker client. And they are doing some amazing things so far.
They’ve currently got a 100% deposit match up to $1000, which is HUGE. They’re also running an Early Bird Special, which means if you register MTTs prior to the start, you’ll get 10% of your buy-ins back in tickets. Check out the terms and conditions at BetRivers Poker but it’s a great deal. And the fields, the rewards, the software have all been fantastic in my mind. If you’re a PA player, you owe it to yourself to check out BetRivers Poker and start reaping those rewards benefits.
Poker is surging in America, and I’m thrilled to be your ambassador here in Pennsylvania. For more information, check out our PokerNews Pennsylvania page here, and be sure to follow me on socials to stay in the know. I’ll be back next month with another update!
Keith Becker is an American poker player based out of Pennsylvania. A former member of PokerStars Team Pro Online, Becker is now a PokerNews Ambassador and Streamer. Becker has been streaming poker on Twitch since Day 1 of regulated poker in Pennsylvania and has led a grassroots movement for PA to join the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement.