The confetti has been swept, the champagne flutes have been carefully washed and put away, and the revelry of another New Year’s celebration has come to a close. With the calendar turning to 2026, however, we must reflect on a subject that seems to have gone quiet, even in our own professional area: the demise of online poker. Despite initial overtures suggesting otherwise, the state of online poker in 2026 is in decline as other gaming options have stormed past it.
Stagnation, Not Expansion
April 15, 2011, is etched in the minds of every person who has been involved in the poker industry for any length of time. Known as “Black Friday” in the poker industry, it was the federal government’s move against three of the then-biggest online poker operations in the business. In one fell swoop, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and the conglomerate of Absolute Poker and UB.com (Ultimate Bet) were shut down and, in the cases of Full Tilt and Absolute/UB, eliminated from the poker ecosystem.
Back when this occurred, I was on a radio program and said it would be a decade before online poker returned across the country. What we have seen since 2011 is that online poker has progressed in fits and starts, with no rhyme or reason to its progress. Instead of getting nationwide passage of online poker (something the federal government would have to implement), we have gotten a patchwork situation that allows some locales to play online freely but leaves most states out.
Immediately after “Black Friday,” questions emerged about just how far the reach of the Department of Justice went. In the winter of 2011, the Office of Legal Counsel told Illinois and New York that online lottery sales were allowed under the Tenth Amendment on states’ rights. Furthermore, the OLC suggested that ALL online gaming functions, excluding betting on sporting events, were within the state’s purview.
This initially ignited a “gold rush” among state legislatures to pass new gaming regulations. New Jersey became the first state to pass online poker legislation in 2013, and Delaware and Nevada quickly followed. There was a slight lull before Pennsylvania, Michigan, and West Virginia (all in 2019) passed their legislation (since then, these six states have formed the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement to pool players for online poker play).
And that’s it…out of forty-seven states (Hawaii, Washington state, and Utah have passed regulations that prohibit online gaming, including poker), only six have officially passed online poker regulations. Connecticut passed online poker, but to date has not had any operators come forward to start an intra-state operation; the District of Columbia has also passed its legislation but has no takers to open the industry.
So What Happened?
What happened was that other forms of online gaming, which were more acceptable to the states, politicians, and the public, came to the fore.
In 2018, the U. S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, allowing the states to set their own rules regarding sports betting. Around this time, daily fantasy sports (DFS) also gained ground as a gaming outlet, and the states would embrace that outlet in equal fervor. Since the overturning of PASPA, thirty-eight states have passed some form of online sports betting, including sports betting and DFS, either through live or online means. Leaving out the trio of states that have taken a draconian stance regarding online gaming, only nine states remain that haven’t embraced an expansion (or start) of online gaming inside their borders.
The passage of these new (acceptable?) gaming options has rushed past online poker, which was thought to be a hand-in-hand situation with online casino gaming back in 2011. Instead, online poker has been relegated to the back of the bus, ignored and pushed aside as the “gambler’s game” fraught with chicanery, deviousness, and outright theft and cheating. The last few years have demonstrated this, and in 2026, it does not look like it will change.
The Stall Will Continue into 2026
Since SCOTUS struck down PASPA, and after the initial rush, there has been a complete halt to any further passage of online gaming or poker legislation. Right now, five states have shelved any legislation to regulate the online gaming industry (Arkansas, Indiana, Maryland, Virginia, and Wyoming). While there are other states with active legislation on their dockets, the chances of passage are slim.
In New York, Senator Joe Addabbo has once again introduced legislation to legalize online casinos (and, in theory, online poker), but for the past decade those efforts have been fruitless. Massachusetts, Illinois, Maine, and New Hampshire have introduced legislation for online casinos, but without an online poker component. None of these options, however, shows any signs of passage.
Instead of further regulating online casinos and poker, some states are looking to pull these operations back. In Michigan, legislation introduced in the General Assembly last week would restrict advertising of online gaming options. After a third violation (and increasing fines for the first two infractions), the business license would be revoked in the state.
Taking all of this into consideration, there is nothing that would make it likely that online poker will move forward anywhere in the U.S. in 2026. The same could be said for online gaming overall and DFS, because the saturation point has almost been reached. Online poker is the one area left for states to seek additional revenue, and it seems none of the eligible states have the appetite to create more gaming options for their citizens.
