Leading online gaming site BetMGM has launched its new online poker series in Michigan, and the poker tournaments will stream online in the Michigan iGaming and Sports platform from now onwards. With this development, Michigan becomes the 6th state in the US to allow online poker in the nation. However, for BetMGM, this is only the second online poker venture after New Jersey.
Accordingly, the first online poker tournament series of BetMGM in Michigan went live officially in January, which brought in mixed fortunes for the players. The tournament, though, started with a slow momentum gradually geared up after the second event.
The Michigan online poker market is still in its infancy, and therefore it was a huge challenge for BetMGM to run such a huge event with an overall guarantee of $300,000 on a site that is barely a month old. The first 2 tournaments failed to meet their target, with the first series failing to meet its target of $75,000, thereby creating an overlay of $7200 for the operator, which was a huge cause of concern for them.
The second tournament also did not improve the scenario much, with the operators expecting to lose a huge sum of money. Suddenly, with the onset of the third event, things began to take a positive turn; the $109 PLO tournament surpassed its target well beyond. The 9th event, “the Sunday Half-Price 8-Max,” needs a special mention generating a guarantee which is more than 2½ times its original.
The tournament finished at $50,100, with the winner named Zzulran pocketing $8442 for his victory. However, in the final event, which was the $75K GTD Sunday Special, a player with the handle dpg123 became the winner pocketing $20,072. Even though BetMGM’s MI event cannot be compared with the success of the PokerStars first MI series, which had 10 events, and MICOOP’s series that has 60 events, it was a great start for BetMGM that will serve as a stepping stone in its future endeavors. A final figure of $360,302 in prizes with only $13,800 in overlays is commendable for BetMGM that dared to launch the event in a brand new online poker market.