The chill that has long frozen Pennsylvania’s intent to join an interstate poker compact was relieved by a federal court ruling last week, but it’s too soon to provide a timetable for when the games with players in other states might actually begin.
Pennsylvania’s October 2017 gambling expansion law that allowed online poker as part of new iGaming specified the state could reach an “interactive gaming reciprocal agreement” with other states.
It was viewed as a useful provision for both future online poker operators and consumers, who all want as many players involved as possible to maximize the number and type of games available at various stakes.
Any consideration of combining with the three other states that had already pooled their players in a compact — New Jersey, Delaware, and Nevada — came to a halt after the Trump administration’s Department of Justice circulated a November 2018 memo suggesting such interstate gambling could violate the federal Wire Act of 1961.