Atlantic City has always been a popular gambling hotbed in North America, offering a host of verticals to players both on and offline.
Even in the digital age, Atlantic City is best known for its brick-and-mortar casinos, such as the iconic Borgata. You can check out a comprehensive Borgata Casino review at Newjerseygambling.info, with this location owned by MGM Resorts and having opened its doors in 2003.
Interestingly, Borgata Poker has recently announced details of a significant partnership with BetMGM Poker, which will feature a million-dollar poker tournament at the former’s busy Atlantic City location.
I’ll explore the details of the tournament below while asking what the broader partnership means for poker gambling in New Jersey and throughout the US. Let’s get into it!
Borgata and BetMGM Go Big on Poker
It’s well-known that poker enjoyed its halcyon days during the noughties when World Series of Poker events were televised and players were regularly banking million-pound prizes in tournaments across the globe.
Of course, this boom came to an abrupt end in the wake of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA), which effectively prohibited US natives from using their bank accounts or credit cards to fund their online poker accounts.
Subsequently, both Full Tilt and PokerStars were found to be in violation of this legislation, triggering a decline that has seen poker become an increasing niche vertical at both on and offline casinos stateside.
However, high-stakes poker made a successful return to the Borgata in January, when the venue crowned a $1 million winner of its highly publicized ‘The Return’ tournament. The brand has looked to build on this through its collaboration with BetMGM, with the ‘Almighty Million’ tournament scheduled to take place between May 7th and May 13th.
This week-long poker extravaganza will see huge bets and lavish pots, while the tournament will use the ‘No Limit Hold ’em’ format to underpin gameplay.
An $800 buy-in ensures players a 100,000 starting stack, making the tournament more accessible and less exclusive than most high-stakes competitions. This will create an open and wildly unpredictable tournament, which will feature one of the largest starting chop stacks of any live Hold ‘em competition in the country.
Prior to the start of the tournament, a rolling schedule of daily qualifiers and promotions will afford BetMGM poker players ample opportunities to qualify for the tournament.
These events get underway on April 23rd, from which players in NJ, Pennsylvania, and Michigan will be able to compete for $2,000 Almighty Million Poker packages, which feature hotel accommodation, automatic tournament entry, and an immediate $500 cash prize!
On-site registration for the tournament commences at Borgata NJ on Friday, May 5th, while any player who wants to register their interest online must do so by Tuesday, May 9th at 9 pm. Obviously, in-person registrations at Borgata New Jersey run for a little longer, so you’ll need to keep this in mind if you want to participate.
Interestingly, the winner of the $255 buy-in Ladies Championship (which is scheduled to take place on March 11th) will also receive a $2,000 package for the Almighty Million, with this provided directly by BetMGM.
There are unlimited re-entries into the tournament too, which only adds to the sense of accessibility of the competition and its availability to players regardless of their experience level and existing financial resources.
Is High-Stakes Poker Set for a Heroic Return?
While the ‘Almighty’ branding has been synonymous with Borgata Poker for around a decade, it has been more than three years since the casino laid on an iteration of this event as part of the Borgata Atlantic City Winter Open.
This can partially be attributed to the coronavirus pandemic, of course, which caused land-based casinos to close their doors through 2020 and for much of the following year too. However, its return could herald a revival of high-stakes poker in US casinos nationwide, especially as it will be the second time in 2023 that the Borgata has hosted a tournament with a prize in excess of $1 million.
Of course, much will depend on the ability of brands like Borgata and MGM to collaborate effectively, in addition to the legal treatment of the contentious Wire Act and how it impacts liquidity-sharing agreements between different states.
Remember, poker is a unique casino game in that it’s played peer-to-peer, which means that any high-stakes tournament requires a high volume of competitors to be successful. So, the ability of both on and offline casino brands to share customer information and data pertaining to their player base will be critical going forward.
While the most recent Department of Justice (DoJ) interpretation of the Wire Act found that this legislation prohibited all iterations of interstate gambling, including casino and poker gameplay. This officially reversed the DoJ’s 2011 opinion, making it considerably harder for casino brands to collaborate while complying with national law.
However, we’ve since seen the New Hampshire Lottery Commission (NHLC) and software house IGT win individual lawsuits against the DoJ and their most recent Wire Act interpretation, and it seems unlikely that this can be sustained going forward.
So, should the DoJ revert to its original 2011 interpretation, we can expect to see considerably more high-stakes poker collaborations in Atlantic City and similar gambling hotspots nationwide. We may also see an increase in the number of online tournaments and collaborations, as casinos look to revitalize the poker scene and restore the glory days of the noughties!
The Bottom Line
There’s no doubt that poker is making a return to Borgata, with a particular focus on high-stakes tournaments that are also accessible and have relatively low buy-in limits.
From the perspective of in-person tournaments, this trend may also see NJ and other states compete with increasingly popular tourist places like Santo Domingo, as players flock from around the world to participate.
Whether it will precipitate a scenario where poker once again becomes the most popular offline or online gambling vertical has yet to be seen, but it certainly seems as though the vertical is gaining in popularity once again!