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PTBetMGM Suffers Overlays But Not Swayed With Initial Performance In Pennsylvania
Just a week after pulling off a successful Online Series in New Jersey, BetMGM decided to host a similar series in Pennsylvania, the operator’s first-ever tournament series in the Keystone state since going live in late April. The ten-event series featured a guarantee of $270,000, and also ran on sister skin Borgata Poker PA.
Both operators were keen on replicating their recent NJ success, but the results didn’t turn out the way they had hoped, as the PA series recorded huge overlays.
The series kicked off on June 20 with a $535 buy-in 8Max event, which had a guarantee of $50,000. But the opening event failed to attract the required number of participants to reach the target and ended up collecting just $29,000, translating to a $21,000 overlay.
In what appeared like a domino effect, the subsequent events also fell short of hitting their guarantees, each overlaying by at least $1,400. After the completion of five tournaments, the series already had an overlay of around 25%, but despite this, BetMGM opted to stick to the guarantees for the rest of the series.
We have yet to obtain the official figures for the remaining events, but they also most likely ended in overlay. The Main Event on June 27, did not gain that much interest either. On June 26, only 8 players had signed up for the Main Event. To hit its target, the Main Event needed to pull in at least 75 entrants.
Just the Beginning
It’s been a rough first two months for both BetMGM and Borgata Poker in Pennsylvania. Latest figures from the state regulator show both operators have so far failed to put a dent in PokerStars PA’s dominance. Official data for May puts PokerStars PA at the top of the rankings, holding a whopping 87% of the Pennsylvania online poker market. PokerStars PA enjoyed an online poker monopoly in the Keystone State being the only site operating there for around 18 months.
While BetMGM and Borgata are currently underperforming in PA, it’s still too early to tell whether they will continue to suffer a similar fate in the months or years to come. Things could change significantly as soon as both Pennsylvania and Michigan join the multi-state online poker agreement. If this happens, both operators could take advantage of shared liquidity across its rooms in NJ, PA, and MI, which would give their U.S operations a big boost.
