Now with the World Series of Poker Main Event for 2019 wrapped up in a nice little bow with a new champion, there is room for more Poker events in the spotlight. Pennsylvania was geared to stand in the limelight for a while; however, the proposed opening of the two new industry online casinos will not feature online poker.
The start of which is delayed indefinitely. The launch of these casinos is being referred to as a “soft” opening which means that the launch is a short term one to see how things go and to pause operation if any glitches are found.
Now with the World Series of Poker Main Event for 2019 wrapped up in a nice little bow with a new champion, there is room for more Poker events in the spotlight. Pennsylvania was geared to stand in the limelight for a while, however, the proposed opening of the two new industry online casinos will not feature online poker. The start of which is delayed indefinitely. The launch of these casinos is being referred to as a “soft” opening which means that the launch is a short term one to see how things go and to pause operation if any glitches are found.
The Very First to Open
Almost two years following the approval of the Pennsylvania legislature, both Hollywood Casino and Parx Casino opened their doors so to speak. Joining the two online casinos was another third, SugarHouse Casino who had their soft opening on the following Wednesday.
The new casinos offer the standard casino games that can be found in land-based gambling establishments including table games, slots, and others.
For SugarHouse and Parx, this is the next step toward their goal in becoming fully-fledged online operations. These platforms have so far been successful in the running of their online sportsbooks. Casino gaming is said to bring in millions of revenues for both platforms.
No Online Poker
There may be a variety of casino games included in the launch of the newest platforms, however, there is something is missing – online poker. The start of the Pennsylvania online gaming operations has excluded the addition of poker in their repertoire of games as there are said to be additional kinks that need to be worked out when it comes to the legal side of things. This means that the introduction of online poker on these platforms has been delayed indefinitely.
The regulatory board merely had this to say regarding the release of online poker, that once a platform decides to launch the game, then the game will be rolled out. What wasn’t specified was whether or not this is a first-mover situation or that there would need to be some co-operation between the hypothetical casino and the regulatory body before the hypothetical launch of online poker.
Online Gambling in Pennsylvania
When it comes to the online gambling and poker regulations of this state, the road has been a long one to get to where they are today. Back in the year 2017, there was a lot of debate regarding the regulations surrounding the online gambling industry. It then took over a year of work to acquire set regulations regarding any software providers and casino operators within the state. Licensing was far from speedy with most casinos going for their last minute.
The set number of licenses did eventually all get purchased. Then, in April of 2019, it was announced that casinos would be permitted to begin operations. Most platforms would wait until July the same year to commence their services. Time will tell how the lack of poker will affect these platforms, as well as, when or if poker will be brought into the fold.