PokerStars keeps upping the ante for its New Jersey and Michigan players ever since merging its player pools on January 1.
Moving forward, PokerStars NJ will offer $1 million in tournament guarantees every week, the largest of any regulated site in the US.
This isn’t a one-off set of NJ online poker events. Instead, it is an immediate reflection of PokerStars’ success from its first interstate venture and its willingness to parlay it to the boon of its players.
Expect more PokerStars tourneys and larger prize pools
The increase in guaranteed money will come from a combination of added tournaments and boosted guarantees. Tournaments across all buy-in levels, from $5 to $250, will have more to play for.
Severin Rasset, Managing Director for PokerStars in the US, said, “We are excited to announce that we will be guaranteeing $1 million per week across our tournaments for our shared Michigan and New Jersey pool.
“The combined liquidity of NJ & MI enables us to reinforce our weekly schedule with more tournaments available every day, a wider variety of buy-ins, bigger guarantee and giving our players the best available in the market.”
Daily tournaments like the Big, Hot and Bounty Builder events will see increased prize pools. Additionally, the Nightly Stars events ($25 and $50 buy-ins) will boast five-figure prize pools seven nights a week.
Players also can look forward to massive Sunday schedules and weekly specials, with the following events soon to have the largest respective guarantees in PokerStars US history:
- Sunday: Sunday Special
- Monday: Battle Royale
- Tuesday: Super Tuesday
- Wednesday: Wednesday Storm
- Thursday: Thursday Thrill
- Friday: Friday Night Fight
- Saturday: Deep Stack Saturday
Poker’s brightest days lie ahead
In addition to the $1 million weekly guaranteed across PokerStars NJ and MI, its Pennsylvania players will play for $500,000 each week. Its markets are thriving, and if Pennsylvania ever joins the party, heads will really start to turn.
Nevada is the other big state in question. In 2013, the state labeled PokerStars a “bad actor” and barred it from entering the market for 10 years.
FanDuel, PokerStars’ sister company (both are owned by Flutter Entertainment), recently gained access to the Nevada market and will open a branded sportsbook inside the Fremont in Downtown Las Vegas in early 2023. PokerStars will be able to apply for licensure this year and should be approved, given its ties to FanDuel.
When PokerStars goes live in Nevada, it will be poised to do so with shared liquidity alongside New Jersey and Michigan as soon as all three states give it the green light.
Currently, Nevadans can only play on WSOP.com, which shares player pools with New Jersey. Its software remains incompatible with the newer version in Michigan, leaving the door open for PokerStars to become the first site with shared liquidity in all three states.
And while the even larger prize pools are nice to think about, such progress also makes an even stronger argument for more states to come along.
Zoom poker coming soon
In the meantime, PokerStars players will soon be able to play the popular fast-fold Zoom poker. The game has occasionally run as it undergoes final testing but will quickly become a mainstay for cash games and tournaments once it is live.
Zoom poker will run with buy-ins ranging from $2 to $200 and at all stakes for tournaments.
The games add another reason for more players to get in on the action. Look for aggressive tournament guarantees and cash game leaderboard promos once Zoom is up and running.
MI and NJ players 🚨
Zoom is BACK tonight! Tables open at 7pm ET! pic.twitter.com/PjAqihbWq3
— PokerStarsUSA (@PokerStarsUSA) January 31, 2023
Upcoming SCOOP will be the biggest yet
PokerStars runs its annual Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) each spring. This year’s version will be the first with shared liquidity and will guarantee more money than any other US-facing series in the past.
The series will follow on the heels of the recently-completed PSPC Online Series, which guaranteed $2.5 million across its 85-tournament schedule.
With PokerStars raising its guarantees sitewide, the PSPC Online Series looks to have been a warm-up for this year’s SCOOP. The momentum PokerStars gained from the start of the year will only propel it to greater heights moving forward.
