Hi! I’m Keith Becker, PokerNews Ambassador and Pennsylvania native, here with a PA poker update for February 2025. It’s an exciting time in America for the game we all know and love, and I’m excited to be bringing you state highlights every month.
What are the big issues and stories on everyone’s minds? Let’s get into it.
Online Poker News
Multi-state poker is on the horizon for Pennsylvania, but what are operators doing in the meantime? Let’s find out:
The new operator on the scene BetRivers has been turning heads with their Rakeback Revolution program, giving away an honestly astonishing amount of rewards and rakeback compared to other sites, making them the clear leader from a value perspective. The new site in town is also adding new guaranteed prize pool tournaments like their $50 Sunday Special – and as more players come in, the tournaments have been picking up, and the guarantees are going up along with that. BetRivers new addition of poker legend Phil Hellmuth to add to their already talented sponsored players signals even larger things to come in both online and live poker. Join BetRivers if you haven’t already as big things are coming.
Over at PokerStars, they continue to capture hype and momentum with the return of their Red Spade Sunday on February 16th. While the $10 offer is noticeably reduced this time around, these guarantees are still very aggressive and should result in some large prize pools with lots of re-entries on a big Valentine’s Day weekend.
WSOP in Pennsylvania is relatively quiet at the moment, but don’t forget that they are running that DEPOSITOR FREEROLL event to the $10K WSOP Main. The freeroll runs on January 30th, so if you want a free chance to play in poker’s most famous MTT, log onto WSOP, make a qualifying deposit, and get in there.
And Global Poker is already underway with their Grizzly Games Series, one of their biggest series of the year. With 21 days of grizzly action, I can hardly bear it. They’ve got 108 trophies on the Gold Coin side, 108 trophies on the Sweeps Coin side – 216 trophies for you to get your paws on. And if that’s not enough, they’ve got special events with special merch, ferocious new avatars, a series leaderboard, and so much more. Whether you’re a mama bear or a little cub, Global Poker has low, medium, and high events so you can nestle into the one that’s just right. Head on over to Global Poker for the Grizzly Games series, and see if you can claw your way to the top.
And finally, players on BetMGM in PA can look forward to the return of their Gridiron Classic. It’s a football-themed series awarding custom BetMGM jerseys to the winners of events. In my opinion, it is always great to see unique prizes, and a jersey is a really cool way to mix it up from the typical trophy. I’m a big fan.
Live Poker News
BetMGM is a good place to jump into live poker, as they funneled many PA players via satellites into the Borgata Winter Poker Open this past month. Some PA players came out with strong showings in the New Jersey series, resulting in a trio of bronze trophies: PA regulars Jeff Stellwagon claimed third overall on the leaderboard for the series, Edward Leonard won $99K for 3rd in the $400 Almighty Million – and celebrated with a dip in the ocean – and Clemen Deng earned $233K in the $3,500 Championship Event for finishing in third place.
And in Philadelphia, over at Live! Poker Room they saw their $500 MegaStacks tournament end in a stunning nine-way chop, with three PA players atop the standings. Each player walked away with over $16K in the $500 entry event.
And of course, Pennsylvania is still headed towards multi-state poker and joining the MSIGA, with the latest word being that we will be joining our fellow Americans sometime around the early second quarter of this year. And in this case, I do think no news is good news and most likely we are still on track for that timeline. And like all of you, I cannot wait.
Poker is surging in America, and I’m thrilled to be your ambassador here in Pennsylvania. For more information, check out our PokerNews Pennsylvania page here, and be sure to follow me on socials to stay in the know. I’ll be back next month with another update!
Keith Becker is an American poker player based out of Pennsylvania. A former member of PokerStars Team Pro Online, Becker is now a PokerNews Ambassador and Streamer. Becker has been streaming poker on Twitch since Day 1 of regulated poker in Pennsylvania and has led a grassroots movement for PA to join the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement.