DraftKings Casino Adds Online Poker Option in Michigan

DraftKings Casino players will be able to join Electric Poker for a brand-new experience that will focus on true poker gameplay. This is not a video poker game, even though it’s tucked under the casino lobby.

DraftKings Casino Grows to Offer Poker

Rather, players who have DraftKings Casino accounts will be allowed to join the game’s lobby and have genuine poker experience. Electric Poker indeed makes it a little harder to convey the message that it is a true poker game that is designed with the sole purpose of having you stake your balance against other players.

DraftKings has not truly elaborated on why it has chosen this format. One reason why could be that the company is keen to see if it can make it work in the first place.

Online poker has been traditionally an underrepresented vertical in the iGaming market in the United States, trailing heavily behind sports betting and traditional casino. The vertical’s revenue for July 2024 contracted by 13% to $2,295,672 from a year earlier when online poker raked in $2,639,873.

By implementing a game focused on the traditional online poker experience, DraftKings can read a proper gauge of what it can expect in terms of engagement. However, these early reads may not necessarily amount to what the company could drive in terms of overall online poker traffic if it were to promote poker as a standalone vertical.

Another argument in the company’s favor is that by putting a true online poker experience to players in the casino lobby it could be experimenting with better channelization. Most players find entry-level poker too difficult, not least because expert players swoop in on tables and beat less experienced players, demoralizing them.

Slightly Different Poker Format Than You Imagined

However, there are a few things to note about this game. It’s reminiscent of the PokerStars Spin and Go and WSOP’s Blast format, which is based on the winner-take-all approach.

The prize is random and determined at the beginning of each round. In other words, DraftKings is intentionally seeking to meld the casino and poker vertical in a way that will elicit the strongest response from its audiences.

A cursory glance suggests that the company has put effort into making the buy-ins and rake sustainable and not too heavy on the purse, giving players plenty of reason to explore this new format.

Is the new game going to post some heady figures? It’s hard to say, but it makes for a fun casino-centric addition that still serves as a bridgehead into the online poker vertical which is still moribund in the United States.