Connecticut Bill Envisions MSIGA Poker Rollout

Many Connecticut poker players have long held out hope that the Nutmeg State might one day join Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Nevada, Michigan, and West Virginia in joining the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA). This compact between the states currently allows for peer-to-peer gambling contests to operate across state lines. 

Specifically, it allows operators like WSOP Online or BetMGM Poker to operate a table in two or more states simultaneously, allowing players from different states to compete against one another. 

Poker sites need both high traffic and large amounts of bettors or liquidity to succeed, which can be extremely difficult if they are confined to operating only in one state at a time, especially if that state is Delaware or West Virginia. Delaware has a population of only slightly more than one million people, while West Virginia has about 1.8 million.

Connecticut has only slightly more citizens, at 3.6 million. While online poker is legal in the state, its small size has kept any poker operators from attempting to open a site, though DraftKings has been testing its three-player Electric Poker games there. 

However, House Bill SB01464 would change all that by allowing the governor to negotiate with other states to enter into an MSIGA agreement for peer-to-peer (p2p) online gambling games, aka poker. The bill clearly spells out that it is for players to compete against one another, not the licensee, and it allows the licensee to assess a fee, aka rake. 

Connecticut has only tribal gaming, and each of the two tribes with legal casinos in the state has one online casino “skin.” Foxwoods partners with DraftKings, and Mohegan Sun partners with FanDuel. Fanatics operates in the state under a “skin” with the Connecticut lottery. 

All three casino operators also operate sportsbooks in the state as well. One odd provision of the bill that has brought heightened scrutiny is language that seems to lay out a possible max sports bet. The last lines of the statement of purpose clearly says: “C) disclose the maximum sports wagers established for online sports wagering; and (3) require the Commissioner of Consumer Protection to adopt regulations establishing maximum sports wagers for online sports wagering.“ 

Up until now, each operator has set its own maximums. Since sports bets can be parlays, money lines, or even long-shot futures, for instance, on Loyola making it to the NCAA Finals, it would seem odd to carve out a one-size-fits-all maximum bet. 

There has been little clarity about this odd addition to the law, and since no maximum is yet laid out, we will need to wait for it to be sent to committee for further discussion before we start to get any sense of what exactly is going on here. 

There are currently more than a dozen other gambling bills, covering everything from betting on airplanes to putting a cap on maximum win percentages for sportsbook operators, bouncing around the Connecticut State House, so this is very much in the early stages. There is no guarantee a bill, especially one launched this late in the session, will ever be passed or even make it out of committee, for that matter.