The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board on August 17 approved the online gaming licenses for Parx Casino, Harrah’s Philadelphia and Mount Airy – hopefully, several of the remaining casinos that applied for the interactive casino licenses will receive approvals in due course. In the meantime, the three casinos that were approved for online gambling are already some big plans for the Keystone State. In a joint press release, on Monday, August 20, the three casinos revealed that these plans will involve bringing the WSOP.com to the state.
“We thank the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board and look forward to continuing to work together on the next steps in bringing online gaming to Harrah’s Philadelphia,” said Harrah’s Philadelphia Senior Vice President and General Manager Chris Albrecht during the Monday press release. “We see this as a great opportunity to bring new customers into our Total Rewards network and for all customers to play with us both online and at the property.”
According to the release, the approval of the casinos’ licenses was the first step in a process that is expected to culminate in a “trio of offerings launch for Pennsylvania residents and visitors including online slots, table games, and poker.”
WSOP.com is reportedly preparing to offer full slate online poker products once online gaming officially goes live in Pennsylvania. This will include Sit and Gos, cash games as well as a decent variety of Multi-Tale Tournaments. The poker operators buy-ins will be tailored to fit the needs of players of both big and small bankroll – the cash games on the new site in Pennsylvania will start with stakes as low as 1¢/2¢ and tournament buy-ins will be as little as $1.10. In addition to this, freeroll tournaments will also be available for the state’s poker players.
Unfortunately, for now, players in Pennsylvania will not be able to compete with players from other states since the state has yet to enter into any liquidity sharing agreement with the other states. On the same note, there are still a number of regulatory hurdles that will need to be cleared before the online poker industry can finally go live. Therefore, for now, since the actual launch dates are yet to be announced, we may need to settle for the fact that the process is finally in motion after a rather long wait – maybe by focussing on the push for sports betting.
Caesars Is Bullish on Pennsylvania
During the press release, Caesar noted that currently, it is the only operator that has been licensed to offer online gambling in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada which are considered to be the largest regulated markets in the United States.
“We’re very bullish on the offering online gaming provides our guests and are excited for the opportunity Pennsylvania presents,” CIE vice president of online casino Melanie Gross stated. “We have a wealth of knowledge and experience from our six years in the online gaming space in the US and believe we’ll be able to hit the ground running in Pennsylvania when online gaming commences in the state.