With a bill to legalize online gaming expected to be voted out of the Pennsylvania House Gaming Oversight Committee, Gibraltar-based online gaming giant 888 Holdings has truck a deal with Mount Airy Casino Resort in the state’s Pocono Mountains region to become the resort’s official online partner in the event of iGaming legalization.
The bill currently breezing through generally positive committee hearings is sponsored by the Gaming Oversight panel’s chairman, John Payne. There are two other bills to legalize iGaming, and one to ban it.
Under the agreement, 888 would use Mount Airy’s interactive gaming license to launch an 888-branded gaming website in the state. The operator brokered the deal through the All American Poker Network, a joint venture between 888 and the Avenue Capital Group that is already active in the regulated states of New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware.
There has been no word on whether the final iGaming bill will include a provision for interstate compacts, which would allow sites to link with online casinos in Delaware and Nevada to pool poker players for larger prizes and larger rakes. Pennsylvania’s population is around 45 percent larger than New Jersey, and initial estimates show revenues of over $100 million in the first year for an interstate network including Pennsylvania.
