A New Era Begins: PokerStars to Merge US Player Pools Under FanDuel in Major Shake-Up
PokerStars and FanDuel are officially joining forces to create a single, unified home for poker, casino, and sports betting in North America. “This move merges player liquidity for bigger prize pools, larger guarantees, and more exciting competition in the United States.” However, Ontario will remain segregated, just as it is today, with no shared liquidity with the US player pool or the global dot-com network. In Ontario, where PokerStars Ontario has a ring-fenced player pool, the transition will also take place. Bonuses are complicated, as some sites offer one deposit bonus while affiliates sometimes offer better deals.
I had 5K chips in this tournament when the big blind was 500. I’m not where I want to be poker-wise; I’m not where I want to be in life. Then I slowly started to realize that sometimes I have no control over the result. It really took a toll on me for a long time. From the start, I wasn’t playing the Main Event to get twenty-third or eighteenth. People see this one event, ‘He’s twenty-two, he just gets gifted this spot worth millions of dollars.’ But I was in there competing in events after I turned eighteen.
The world’s largest online poker room (smaller, but still the largest)… Read more » Chengyu Liao, an Istanbul-based non-professional who said he flew to North Cyprus specifically for the weekend to play poker, won the $7,500 High Roller at the 2026 NOIR Poker Series at Merit Royal Diamond Hotel Casino & Spa, taking home $300,000 in first-place prize money, according to PokerNews. Up to three sites per operator A bill has been filed in Virginia that would legalize poker, along with other forms of internet gaming, in the state. While the uninitiated might think of poker as just “playing cards,” for many it is a game of warfare that demands strategic thinking.
Smit observed that the game could be a pantomime of how you’re supposed to behave around people from whom you’re continually hiding your intentions. In that respect, it’s www.pokernewsdaily.com a 15-hour play each day.” “When you’re going by the tables, so many of the people don’t seem to be paying any attention at all. I spend time paying attention to things that other people don’t bother paying attention to.” And Smit soon understood that the game’s elite weren’t simply better strategists – they were better observers.
Simply put, it didn’t outlaw online poker, but it took away the ability to get the money required to play online poker on and off the sites. The first online poker site to offer real money games was Planet Poker in 1998; in fact, the very first hand was dealt on January 1! For poker players, Black Friday was the day the US government forever altered the course of online poker. In April 2025, Pennsylvania joined the multi-state compact, allowing players from the state to play online poker with other players in Michigan and New Jersey. WSOP.com is pretty much the only current legal online poker site for players in Las Vegas and the state of Nevada.
Cash game and MTT data used in any articles, reports, charts or elsewhere is provided by SharkScope Analytics unless specified otherwise. The tournament took place at LES A Casino in Jeju and attracted 71 entries. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, please visit begambleaware.com (Great Britain) to find help.
Is Poker Legal in Florida?
This product consolidation isn’t growing the game. But some people don’t have time for the stream. As your own questions to me attest, being a tournament reporter was always considered this horrible grunt work. The fact these episodes are lost to time guts me, as I would give a lot to be able to go back and listen. Getting to share some of the stories from a tournament day that weren’t the headlines but were memorable nonetheless was a very special opportunity. Out of all the work that I did in poker, getting asked to be part of Poker Road Radio was always the work I remember most fondly.
- “Pennsylvania represents the largest state to join the shared player pool and turbocharges our poker platform,” BetMGM Vice President of Gaming Angus Nisbet, said in a press release. “This expanded player pool will allow us to deliver more games and bigger tournaments to our players.
- Legalized gambling in Rhode Island dates back to 1934 when voters approved parimutuel betting on horse races.
- However, we still advise players to familiarize themselves with the practices of responsible gambling and educational value of the respected organizations above.
- This means that players can compete against other players from certain states in a shared-liquidity pool.
- Proper bankroll management should be considered, but deposit bonuses and promotions also come into play.
In part two of our interview with Daniel, we will dive into why he feels PLO events have become his ‘jam’ and go into a deeper discussion on the controversial results of the 2026 Poker Hall of Fame. And you want to make sure people haven’t wasted their money on you. He got there playing a super aggressive style, and he was really going for it. The one where he hit top pair with ks,jd, and eventually folded the river to a big bet? A lot of people don’t understand his methods, but his long-term goal for poker is beautiful.
This gives beginners more of a genuine chance to compete and win in both cash games and tournaments. The poker site features good cash game liquidity and steady MTT schedules, plus shared player pools for better traffic. Backed by GGPoker and the iconic World Series of Poker, WSOP Online offers a mix of cash games and marquee events like Online Circuit and Bracelet series.
This version will feature a $2M championship event from Nov. 5-10, a big piece of almost $4M in total guarantees across the series. The shockwaves of yesterday’s decision by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) to revoke the e-gaming license of Full Tilt Poker continue to be felt across the poker world. Beginning on September 10, PokerStars will be offering a massive 110-event schedule that covers virtually every discipline that is available in the world of poker. Han Feng has been eliminated from the World Series of Poker Main Event final table in fifth place after a dramatic river card ended his run, earning $2,250,000 for his finish, PokerNews reported.
Season 3 of Galfond’s intense Beyond the Game poker training program brings some big improvements and more flexible membership options. From preflop chart apps to solvers and ICM calculators, discover the best poker tools in 2026 that you will need in your arsenal. The huge pot was a fitting exclamation mark to a wild stretch of play. Start-of-day leader Reoma Ogawa was ousted in seventh place when his roughly nine-big-blind three-bet shove was called by Molenaar’s ac,qs. It finally came 38 hands later with Yuya Arito falling to Chan after he jammed 5h,5d from the small blind and couldn’t hold up against Chan’s call from the big blind with ks,jh. Play was notably snug after the bubble burst, with the APT commentary team invoking Teddy KGB from Rounders as the entire table was ‘hanging around, hanging around’ for that first $6K pay jump.
In just over an hour on Wednesday night, poker history was made. That will be rectified this week as the crème of the European poker world goes to one of its favorite locations, the Casino Barcelona in Spain. All operators listed by PokerListings are licensed and safe to play at.
PokerNews Cup Thunder Valley
Medium stacks often play conservatively to lock in a cash. The bubble (just before the money) is where strategy shifts. As blinds increase and stacks shrink relative to blinds, stealing becomes profitable. ”You can’t win the tournament in Level 1, but you can definitely lose it.” Good bankroll management and solid tournament strategy will take you a long way. Once you’ve found your game, register and take your seat.
For the younger generations that might not know, Negreanu racked up well over $4M in tournament earnings. And then Negreanu took center stage – first providing listeners with a bit of his poker backstory before launching into a story about his first bracelet win back in 1998. We’ll have much more from the Main Event and the rest of the series, so keep your browsers locked on PokerOrg, the official media partner of the Asian Poker Tour. Plus, with low-cost satellites available, you can earn your way into events for a fraction of the already-inexpensive price. And with the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) looming on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to start honing your strategy – check out the schedule highlights below. From August 16 to 31, the MicroMillions schedule will provide 139 events and more than $2M in guaranteed prize pools.
Best Sites to Play Freerolls
Meanwhile, some states have long embraced poker such as Nevada, New Jersey, and Louisiana. Find out more about the poker scene in each of those six states. Online poker is also legal in Connecticut, Maine and Rhode Island, but as of 2026 no operator has decided to launch there. Be sure to check out the schedules for upcoming events, and come back again soon for the latest updates and information! PokerNews is getting ready to report on the following events and festivals.
However, it was only in June 2025 that residents of West Virginia had a legal and regulated platform on which they are able to play, following the launch of BetRivers Poker. Among Washington state casinos are Muckleshoot Casino, Tulalip Resort Casino and Emerald Queen Casino, to name just a few. There are nearly three dozen casinos in Washington operated by more than two dozen different tribes. Charities are permitted to hold bingo, raffles, and casino nights.
You can find all these answers on our legal gambling guides which are catered for those new to the scene as well as seasoned veterans. Online poker is making a comeback in the U.S. 15 years after Black Friday, thanks in no small part to the PokerStars on FanDuel launch. Within days after launching the poker site, a $5 million guaranteed Ignite Series beginning April 18 was announced. Scheinberg avoided prison time and had to pay a fine of just $30,000, bringing the Black Friday saga to a close nearly a decade later. In March 2020, PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg pleaded guilty to running an unlawful internet gambling business. Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson of Full Tilt Poker are considered pariahs in the poker community to this day, though Ferguson appeared at the 2017 World Series of Poker and wound up winning the Player of the Year distinction to the dismay of the community.
Just ask Philip Hilm, who started as the 2007 Main Event final table chip leader and ended up being the first out. The 2026 WSOP Main Event final table runs Monday through Wednesday. At the end of the day, depending on how I do, I want to play the big, staged events, like the WPT Championship at the Wynn. And compared to the no-limit games, we’re always joking around.
We still have a lot of work to do to finish this tournament. I overthink spots a lot, so I sometimes think worst-case scenario. How will you mentally prepare this week for such a huge moment on poker’s biggest stage?
You had a tough position at one of the last tables on Day 8. You have to play according to how the situation dictates it. How were you adjusting to your tables up to that point? “Just as I learned to be able to skate away from an altercation on the ice, I learned to make big folds at the tables.” “As far as the competitive nature of hockey and the discipline required, those are the similarities with poker,” says Mueller. Greg Mueller’s poker journey began on long bus rides during his professional hockey career.
With its population of over 13 million and over 150,000 online poker players, Pennsylvania brings much-anticipated shared liquidity to a player pool that includes players from New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware, West Virginia, and Michigan. A lot of players prefer real money gambling because of the thrill but some just enjoy the feeling of cashing out after a game. This is totally risk free and is perfect for those who want to practice playing poker online or for players where it is illegal to gamble real money in their state.
You can still access all the same features and games that the old PokerStars had, the main difference is just that you now have to have a FanDuel account to play on PokerStars. This was arguably the biggest, single change the operator has undergone since its inception, but it was a significant one for players. Choosing where to play poker online can be overwhelming, especially with so many options available these days.
And finally, we display online poker sites frequented by US players, those in Australia, and elsewhere, ranking them by features, benefits, and overall poker experiences. Yes, you can win money from online poker tournaments in the sense that they are legitimate, real money poker games that award cash prizes. When playing real-money online poker tournaments, your safety and fairness at the tables should always come first. Free-play online poker is perfect for beginning players, or even those who want to try a particular poker software platform before committing money to play there. Most online poker players take their first dip into the pool with only play-coins or money. One site might fill its tables with professional poker players and grinders, while a competitor might offer some of the softest games.
And I think that poker is all about paying attention.” “The artist paid attention to some strange detail in our lives and summed it up. As he walked through the sea of tables during the WSOP Main Event, Smit found himself in a room filled with observers, many of whom were masters.
So apart from the summer WSOP series in Las Vegas, I spend most of my time in Asia. After winning two APT events earlier this year, did you decide to play more APTs? What I like most about APT is their big lion trophies, especially the golden-colored lion trophy for their main event, which is the trophy I want to win the most right now.
The 2026 APT Incheon Main Event has become the largest international poker tournament ever held in the city, and the second-largest APT Main Event ever held in South Korea. I’ve won every tournament I’ve ever played heads-up in PLO. You don’t get punished for that as you would in no-limit, because the crux of the game is played post-flop. How many times did you have to rebuy in all of those combined events? $5,300 SHRPO Championship final table results The finale started with Greufe and Hui holding most of the chips, but McKeehen crawled back from third to beat both of them in three-handed play.
A match bonus is available for new GGPoker players, but the real draw is GGPoker’s scale, software quality, and unmatched tournament schedule. Its global player pool keeps every format active, from micro cash games to $10K majors. GGPoker is the world’s biggest online poker site and the home of the WSOP Online series. The other notable change is that PA, NJ, and Michigan players can now all share a cross-state player pool, meaning more players and bigger prizes. PokerStars is an iconic poker brand — call it one of the “OG’s” of online poker, with some of the biggest names in the game proudly promoting the brand.