Lawmakers are missing the mark by not proposing legislation that would legalize online poker in Maryland.
Legislators are taking their time considering proposals that would allow for online sports betting . But why not poker?
Maryland’s brick-and-mortar poker industry is one of the healthiest on the East Coast. The state’s four poker rooms generated $3.6 million in gross gaming revenue last month.
However, it could be an even larger figure if regulators would allow for an online counterpart to continue the game’s growth in Maryland. We need to look at NV and NJ for comparison
Nearly half of all states have legal online sports betting markets. Additionally, several more, Maryland included, are seriously considering expanding their retail market into the online realm .
However, unlike sports betting, only seven states legalized online poker with just six launching a market.
Furthermore, many of those states don’t have an extensive history with live poker, either. For example, Pennsylvania, which legalized online poker in 2017 and launched it two years later, has only been spreading live poker since 2010.
Therefore, given the youth of most of the online betting markets, we don’t have a ton of data to go off. But the data we can analyze points to an increase in revenue for Maryland’s operators and government coffers through legal online poker.
It makes the most sense to look at the trends in New Jersey and Nevada. After all, they are two of the largest gambling markets in the U.S. and have the longest track records on both sides of poker operations.Both states were spreading poker games well before the 2003 poker boom. And they were two of the first jurisdictions to bring back online poker following the federal government’s crackdown on the unregulated market in 2011. Evolution of online poker Before we dive into the actual numbers, it’s important to look at the timeline of the poker bubble in the mid-2000s . Pre-2003 : Online poker sites begin popping up with moderate popularity May 2003 : Chris Moneymaker satellites into the World Series of Poker Main Event from a $69 PokerStars tournament , wins it for $2.5 million […]
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