PokerStars has informed players in New Jersey and Michigan of a scheduled outage on Dec 12 and 13. Players in both states will not have access to online poker, casino or sports betting services as the online poker operator is carrying out server maintenance work. PokerStars will resume normal services from Dec 14.
Merging of NJ and MI Markets
PokerStars has confirmed that the scheduled downtime is to update software services to ensure that the New Jersey and Michigan markets get merged under the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA).
Michigan signed the MSGIA agreement in April 2022 and there has been speculation for months as to when PokerStars would add Michigan to the New Jersey market. PokerStars has confirmed services will resume on Dec 14 but has not confirmed from when Michigan players will be part of the inter-state liquidity pool as of now.
Once the upgrade is made official, players will have access to bigger prize pools, more tournaments and higher guarantees which was a key part of the MSIGA agreement. PokerStars Michigan will be the first operator to capitalize on the MSIGA agreement as the WSOP and BetMGM have yet to confirm any software upgrades as of this writing.