Rush Street Interactive has launched a real-money poker site called BetRivers Poker with the help of poker icon Phil Galfond. Rush Street Gaming was an online casino site, and now it offers online poker to its customers in Pennsylvania.
The announcement came from BetRviers Sportsbook X profile, where they announced a new poker site and gave a 100 percent welcome bonus to players from Pennsylvania.
After the announcement from BetRivers, Phil Galfond also posted on his X profile and supported the project by saying he was involved in building the online poker platform.
Most of the comments were positive and curious about expansion to other states, as sites need a player pool to grow and survive. Also, some people asked Phil to bring quality customer support to their states.
On February 6, 2019, Phil Galfond opened his own poker site called “Run It Once Poker.” After running for around three years, Run It Once Poker shut down operations on January 3, 2022, and was sold to Rush Street Interactive. Three years later, the site was developed and launched in Pennsylvania, and it is expected to join MSIGA (MultiState Internet Gaming Agreement) in a few months.
If we try to look for reasons why Run it Once Poker didn’t succeed, we can make an argument that the site didn’t have MTTs in its game selection and was full of regulars who were trying to fight for the generous leaderboards and rakeback that the site offered. So maybe this could still be an issue if Phil and the company don’t expand their horizons.
Phil remains the key developer for BetRivers Poker, focusing on a player-first experience. And we can see that the new site lobby looks similar to the old Run it Once Poker lobby, but there is “Tournaments” tab in game selection.
“As poker players, we designed this platform from the ground up to be for the players – all players. From the amateur playing their very first hand to the sophisticated pro, everyone was kept in mind as we focused on fairness, excitement, and generous rewards that truly benefit the player. I’ve been heavily involved in the game design, promotions, and policy decisions, and, more importantly, in building an incredible team that sees online poker the way I do.” said Galfond.
