Will the launch of online poker in PA lead to an explosion of Meet Up Games in the Keystone State? (photo: Brad Owen)

The upcoming launch of online poker in Pennsylvania could just a well be a boon to Pennsylvania’s live scene.

What started out as a way for a handful of poker vloggers to interact with their fans has turned into an all-out poker movement as ‘Meet Up Games’ continue to pop-up all over the U.S.

Notable poker personalities like Brad Owen, Andrew Neeme, Johnnie ‘Vibes’ Moreno and Tim ‘The Trooper’ Watts have brought their online communities out from behind the comments section on their YouTube channels and into the real world to congregate, socialize and play a little poker.

For Owen and Neeme, the MUGs have blossomed into a rotating tour of poker rooms from their hometown of Las Vegas to East Coast properties like Maryland Live! and just about every imaginable stop in between.

The duo has seen an explosion in their respective online audience in conjunction with the rise of the MUGs. In fact, Owen has recently surpassed his MUG partner Neeme in total subscribers, soaring to over 145,000 fans on YouTube. However, it hasn’t always been easy to convince card rooms of the benefits of the MUGs.

“Early on it was very difficult pitching the idea of MUGs to prospective properties without a proof of concept,” said Brad Owen. “Most poker room managers weren’t familiar with poker vlogs and didn’t see or understand the value in what we were trying to do. Now that we’ve had success in rooms all over the country, a lot of properties are reaching out to us.”

With some sites seemingly ready to go live, Pennsylvania looks to be a natural fit for an explosion of future Meet-Up Games. The state, which legalized online gaming nearly two years ago, has always had plenty of live options. There are more than 10 properties in the Keystone State that offer live poker, many of which have partnered with a premier online brand to, eventually, roll out an online poker client. Any of these properties would seemingly make for an excellent landing spot for a new batch of online poker streamers to bring their audience out for a night of live gaming.

“There are a lot of poker players in and around that area already so I think MUGs should do very well in PA,” Owen said. “Having online poker would open up some possibilities to interact with viewers in a few ways that haven’t been fully explored yet.”

Owen and Neeme have a method of targeting locations for possible MUGs. Of course, it’s nice when they are asked by a property to visit or have an established relationship where they can return to, but if the duo is doing the groundwork they have some ideas of what makes for a ‘favorable’ location.

“First, we’ll pick a city or region that we know has lots of poker players and vlog watchers. We’ll take into consideration demographics data provided by YouTube analytics as well as comments and message from our followers,” Owen said.

“Andrew and I sometimes bring in 200-300 additional people on a weekday so the property that is hosting the event with us has to have lots of open tables and available dealers. This means that poker rooms that are extremely busy almost every night like Aria or Bellagio aren’t ideal since they don’t have much space for us.

“A well-trained staff that is willing to let us play bomb pots and double-board bomb pots is also a big plus. Also, it’s a lot of fun to have drinks with everyone after the poker session so it’s nice too if the property has a bar on-site as well.”

The casinos in Pennsylvania addresses many of the checklist issues mentioned by Owen.

Another popular Twitch Poker streamer, Trevor Savage, knows the area well and is not only looking forward to the launch of online poker in PA, but the possibility of MUGs springing up there when it does.

“There are some great places to play poker in PA,” said Savage. “I spent two years playing at Parx every day between 2011 and 2013 in between Black Friday and regulated poker starting in New Jersey. I still have a lot of contacts there and have been in touch with them in regards to getting a MUG going. They are going through the necessary steps with the commission to make this happen so hopefully, we will soon be talking about the first-ever MUG in PA.”

Savage is currently living in one of the sweet spots for regulated online poker. He’s a regular in the online games in New Jersey but is planning on capitalizing when online poker in PA finally gets off the ground.

“I love in NJ so I already have online poker here but I’m only 15 minutes or so from Philadelphia. When online poker goes live in PA, I may get an office in Philly and commute there a few days a week to play – if it’s only PA player pools and does not include New Jersey. A lot will depend on my schedule with the family and how I feel like things are going in my life more so than the state of the games in PA,” Savage said.

The launch of online poker could be a boon for Meet Up Games and vice versa. Players like Owen and Savage could be turning their online audiences into live players and live players being converted to online grinders.

“Getting online poker up and operating is huge for the growth of poker everywhere,” Savage said. “Online poker allows people to play in fair, regulated environments from the comfort of their home. Due to the availability of microstakes it decreases the barrier of entry and increases the number of people who can rise up through the ranks.”

Savage notes that there may be some hangups by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board that is stifling the emergence of Meet Up Games due to fact that they are typically filmed and turned into content for the vloggers that organize them. A call to the PGCB legal department was not returned by the time of this publishing. However, if that hurdle can be overcome, Owen notes that MUGs in the Keystone State could become a reoccurring source of excitement for area players.

“Once a property has agreed to host with us, the preparation is pretty easy. We ask that they property make the list available as soon as possible for people to add their names to it so that we’ll know how many people to expect and so that we can prepare accordingly. We mostly need to make sure that there will be enough dealers on hand than that there will be enough chips for everyone.”

While not yet scheduled to appear in Pennsylvania, Owen and Neeme will be hosting a number of MUGs throughout the end of the year.

10/26 – Southpoint Casino – Las Vegas, NV
11/08 – Cadillac Jack’s – Deadwood, SD
11/15-16 – Gratons Resort & Casino – Rohnert Park, CA (No. Cal)
12/10 – Maryland Live! – Hanover, MD
01/23-26 – Aspers Casino – London, UK