Not too long ago, top sports betting and iGaming operator BetMGM announced its brand new state championship series in 3 of its top regulated poker markets. The online series will be hosted on BetMGM’s platforms in each of the 3 states namely Michigan, Pennsylvania, as well as New Jersey.
The poker championship is expected to last for a week and a half and will feature a total of 26 poker events that will be hosted concurrently in all 3 states. Altogether, the series in the 3 markets will offer poker players a chance to take home a piece of the prize pool, which is expected to surpass $2 million.
The largest combined guarantee will be offered to poker players in New Jersey since it is the oldest iGaming market among the three states. Michigan will have the second highest prize pool at $680,000 while Pennsylvania will offer poker players total guarantees worth $540,000 across its various tournaments.
Series qualifiers for the state championships have already kicked off and have been offering poker players an array of affordable buy-ins starting from a very low $5. The buy-ins for the tournament will range from $5 and will climb to $2,500, which will make the championship open for participants with modest budgets to work with.
At least 4 tournaments in the series will include a buy-in of $1,000 or higher, including the High Roller tournament with a buy-in of $2500. This high roller tournament is expected to take place on September 18th. The flagship tournament of the championship will be the 8-Max Championship which features guarantees worth $600,000 in all the states.
The 8-Max Championship will be a 2-day event that will kick off on September 25th. Throughout every day of the tournament series, there will also be a cheaper NLHE 8-Max Phase tournament. This much more affordable tournament will feature a buy-in of $100.
Early registration and bonuses have been taking place since September 6th on the BetMGM platform in each of the states. This first tournament is expected to resemble the recently concluded poker championship that was held at the Aria this June. BetMGM organized its first-ever tournament between June 23rd and June 26th as part of this year’s Aria Poker Classic.
This was the first time that BetMGM was organizing a live poker tournament in the country. As such, the BetMGM Poker Championship at the Aria was quite the milestone for the growing iGaming operator. The headline event for the poker tournament was the $3500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em, which offered a guarantee of $1 million.
Other highlights of this tournament included the $600 buy-in Mystery Bounty, which debut at the venue on June 25th. BetMGM organized online qualifiers for its event on its real money poke platform in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. BetMGM also offered its customers from Canada a chance to win a package to the championship event.
Each package offered to customers of BetMGM included a free 5-night stay at the Aria, as well as an all-expenses-paid trip. Winners of the various packages were also offered a chance to take part in the $25,000 freeroll that was hosted by BetMGM’s brand ambassador Darren Elias and Matt Berkey.
As mentioned earlier, the online qualifiers were held in all the 3 states in which BetMGM operates. However, one notable state, Nevada, was missing from the list. BetMGM has yet to debut its platform to punters in Vegas even though BetMGM’s parent company Entain was issued a 3-year extension in 2021.
At present, WSOP.com is the only online poker platform that is allowed to operate in Nevada. Now that BetMGM has debuted its online poker championship, this could signal that the operator may be close to launching in Nevada ahead of the multi-state poker agreement.
Nevada is already a vibrant member of the multi-state online poker agreement alongside Delaware and New Jersey. If BetMGM decides to debut its platform in Nevada, this could essentially allow BetMGM to merge and boost its player pool in New Jersey with its new market in Nevada. Michigan, where BetMGM also operates, was also recently invited to join the interstate pact and is expected to join in the coming year.
The first-ever BetMGM Poker championship kicked off on June 23rd and ended on the 26th. The much bigger Aria Poker Classic, however, comprised a total of 50 poker tournaments which ran through June 1st to July 17th. In the end, BetMGM’s $3500 Main Event was won by Joey Weissman.
The $3500 Main Event attracted a field of 343 poker players, which allowed it to generate just a little under $1.1 million in combined cash. A huge majority of the field, which consisted of exactly 68 players, qualified for the Main Event by playing online at BetMGM in either of the 3 states.
An additional poker tournament organized by Entain also in the works
This has been a great year for BetMGM so far. In September, PartyPoker, which is affiliated with Entain also organized another tournament titled the partypoker MILLIONS Online. The second iteration of the event kicked off on September 1st joining other heavyweight poker tournaments such as PokerStars, as well as GGPoker’s WSOP Online bracelet series.
The partypoker MILLIONS Online is scheduled to take place between September 1st and 27th and will consist of 15 events. It is expected to offer guaranteed prize pools worth $6.3 million. The highlight of the series will be the Main Event with a buy-in worth $3200.
The tournament will offer 6 starting flights all through the month. The first starting flight will take place on September 4th with each tournament being held each Sunday until September 26th. Day 2 flights will kick off on the 26th while the final day will occur on the next day, September 27th.
Final Thoughts
Last year, the Partypoker MILLIONS Online Main Event broke records. During last year’s version, Ramiro Petrone from Argentina walked away with a cash prize worth approximately $859,018. The second version is expected to be even more successful.
