Rush Street Interactive (RSI) is conducting a closed soft launch of its BetRivers Poker platform in Pennsylvania, pokerfuse can reveal.
Doug Harbach, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB), told pokerfuse on Thursday that BetRivers Poker was “currently undergoing a closed soft launch,” and that the platform testing was closed to the public.
In gaming development parlance, a “closed soft launch” is invite-only or when players meet select criteria. Operators can also reward players, especially those who may have provided feedback or performed testing in the past, with a chance to play in a closed soft launch. The exact details of who is participating in the soft launch are not known.
The date that the closed soft launch started was not clear. Harbach told pokerfuse that the testing period would more than likely last “a few days,” but later added “unless there is a need for additional testing. This also does not mean a public launch occurs as soon as the testing is done.”
A spokesperson for Chicago-based RSI did not return a message seeking comment Thursday.
A BetRivers Poker Launch in MI and NJ Still Expected
News that BetRivers Poker had advanced to the point where the platform was ready for testing with a state regulator is the biggest development to date.
Speculation as to where RSI would initially launch an online poker platform has been building since March 2022 — when the company acquired and onboarded the team that developed Phil Galfond’s Run It Once Poker (RIO), which BetRivers Poker is based upon.
An aggressive approach would see RSI initially launch BetRivers Poker in Michigan and New Jersey. That’s because both states are signatories of the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA), a multi-state compact where operators in the member states can combine their player pools.
Some have even suggested that RSI could launch BetRivers Poker in Delaware as part of a multi-state launch. A launch there would end a de facto blackout for real money online poker — the online poker blackout in Delaware began at the end of 2023 after RSI took over from 888 as the Delaware Lottery’s exclusive igaming provider. Delaware is also a member of MSIGA.
The thinking has always been that since BetRivers Poker would be a new real money online poker platform in the US — and would be going head-to-head with more established rivals, specifically, BetMGM Poker, PokerStars, and WSOP Online — that it would make the most sense for RSI to initially launch the platform in states with shared liquidity.
BetRivers PA Could Be the First Step
But in an interesting twist, the jurisdiction that (to date) has seen the most movement with regard to a launch of BetRivers Poker has been Pennsylvania — a segregated market that has been stagnating in terms of revenue for the last year, compared to states with shared liquidity.
Last June, a poker room manager at Rivers Casino Philadelphia — one of two land-based casinos owned and operated by Rush Street Gaming, an RSI affiliate — strongly suggested in an exclusive that a launch in the Keystone State was forthcoming.
That followed social media posts the poker room manager had made, asking the Pennsylvania online poker community for feedback on the new platform and for ways RSI could keep players engaged with the brick-and-mortar poker room at the casino.
Also, in the first public appearance of the new BetRivers Poker in action in the documentary series Galfond, first reported on by pokerfuse, the BetRivers Poker app contained the logo of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, suggesting Pennsylvania was definitely in the plans and perhaps farther along than other jurisdictions.
At this stage it seems clear that RSI intends to launch BetRivers Poker in Pennsylvania, regardless of whether the state is a segregated market when launch day comes. A large ring-fenced jurisdiction where RSI could cross-promote poker to its online casino and sportsbook players could serve as the perfect testing ground prior to a more complicated multi-state rollout.
Pennsylvania has about 13 million residents, making it a larger market than both Michigan and New Jersey, which have populations of 10 million and 9.3 million, respectively. In the long run, RSI could also be calculating that it is only a matter of time before Pennsylvania joins MSIGA.
Other Recent Signs
Also in June, RSI was looking to hire some key positions to get BetRivers Poker over the finish line.
RSI was looking to hire a Full Stack Engineer, specifically for poker, and had posted identical listings to four European job boards.
Five months earlier, RSI was looking to fill two director-level positions for poker. The postings followed more than a year of similar advertisements looking for various poker executives.