Electric Poker.
That’s the name of a new real-money online poker game from DraftKings, one of Michigan’s leading online casino and sports betting operators. DraftKings announced on Wednesday that it had launched the product exclusively for Michigan online poker players.
Electric Poker is the fourth real-money online poker option in Michigan and taps into the DraftKings player base, one which can relate to poker’s competitive nature. With its history of mainstream adoption in daily fantasy sports, online casinos and sports betting, DraftKings could restore online poker’s popularity in ways not experienced in nearly a decade and a half.
Online poker inside the DraftKings online casino lobby
Online poker’s heyday occurred between 2003 and 2006 after Chris Moneymaker’s historic 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event victory. It experienced a speed bump in 2006 after Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act. It met its recognized death in 2011 when the US Department of Justice seized the top websites for various crimes.
Since then, six states have legalized online poker. Michigan online poker launched in 2021 and became the top market nationwide in 2023, less than a year after interstate games went live. Now, DraftKings joins a market featuring three reputable brands in PokerStars, WSOP and BetMGM.
Despite the late arrival in the market, DraftKings has a major advantage over its competitors. Electric Poker is available inside the DraftKings MI online casino app, while the other three clients require a separate download.
This feature makes the game accessible to a new population of players who otherwise wouldn’t have taken the necessary steps to play. Players can get in on the action without downloading a separate app, creating a username, verifying their identification and funding their accounts.
Its low barrier for entry provides a welcoming and fun experience to the game. Anybody in Michigan with a DraftKings account can play.
Electric Poker available for Michigan online poker players
This week’s announcement confirmed that Michigan was the first and only state for DraftKings to launch its new online poker game.
DraftKings offers daily fantasy sports in 44 states, online sports betting in 25 states (plus Washington, D.C.) and online casinos in five states. It chose Michigan, the nation’s most thriving online poker market, to launch Electric Poker.
For now, Electric Poker offers one variant of the game, a three-player jackpot sit-n-go tournament. This tournament functions in a hyper-turbo format designed to run over a short period of time, often only a handful of minutes.
As such, players not only have a low barrier to entry but also do not need to invest the same amount of time to play as in a larger tournament.
Yet, players can still win big, just like in a multi-table tournament. How?
The game has a winner-take-all format incorporating all buy-ins into a larger “jackpot” prize pool. Before each tournament, a random number generator runs a jackpot reel that will determine the overall prize pool.
DraftKings offers Electric Poker at the $1, $5, $10 and $25 buy-in levels, and prize pool multipliers range from 2x to 10,000x the buy-in.
- 2x Multiplier: 477,800 in 1 million (~47.8% probability)
- 3x Multiplier: 359,956 in 1 million (~36% probability)
- 4x Multiplier: 111,133 in 1 million (~11.1% probability)
- 5x Multiplier: 46,000 in 1 million (4.6% probability)
- 10x Multiplier: 5,000 in 1 million (0.5% probability)
- 100x Multiplier: 100 in 1 million (0.01% probability)
- 1,000x Multiplier: 10 in 1 million (0.001% probability)
- 10,000x Multiplier: 1 in 1 million (0.0001% probability)
Note: 5x and 10x multipliers pay the top two places. All three players are guaranteed a prize for 100x multipliers and above.
Could DraftKings be the future of online poker in the US?
DraftKings’ entrance into online poker comes in a different way than other operators, incorporating the game within its online casino. However, Electric Poker is very limited.
First, it only offers one type of game. Players looking for a schedule of tournaments with larger prize pools will not find them on DraftKings. Similarly, cash game players have no offerings.
Additionally, its buy-in levels are fairly restrictive. The highest stake, $25, shows a commitment to casual players but might not entice higher-limit bettors from sports betting, slot machines and table games.
That said, poker will only grow if it appeals to the casual enthusiast. We were all new to the game at one point, after all, and DraftKings provides a new avenue for many new players to test the waters and see how much fun they can have.
Additionally, DraftKings is a more prominent household name in the country outside of only gambling. Its favorable standing in regulated markets provides hope that it can expand the product to the rest of its online casino markets.
If Electric Poker gains enough popularity as it grows, DraftKings will have a solid claim for expanding its product and footprint to new states. Hopefully, this is only the beginning.
July was the best month this year for DraftKings’ MI online casino
DraftKings has long been the state’s long-time number three operator behind BetMGM and FanDuel. But, lately, DK had been slipping in revenue, posting declines in each of the last three months.
That trend was halted in July when DraftKings posted its best month in Michigan since April with revenue of $37 million.
DK was $9.6 million behind FanDuel and $13.6 million behind BetMGM in July, which was the fourth-best online casino revenue month in Michigan history with combined revenue of $191.4 million.
