BetRivers Poker: Phil Galfond's poker room lands in Pennsylvania

Author

Vargoso

Published

11/2/2024

Updated

11/2/2024

Phil Galfond and Rush Street Interactive launched their new online poker room, BetRivers Poker, in Pennsylvania. The site has four competitors in the state, including PokerStars. In this article, we will tell you how BetRivers Poker plans to attract players' attention.

Bet Rivers Poker Pa Launching in Pennsylvania

Phil Galfond's second poker room

On October 31, 2024, the famous American player posted the following message on his X account (formerly Twitter):

Phil Galfond Launch Bet Rivers Poker

Recall that at the end of 2021, Phil announced the closure of his Run It Once Poker project, which, after several years of testing, only operated for two years. Then, the American company Rush Street Interactive (owner of the BetRivers casino and bookmaker in several states) bought the software developed by Galfond's team and made the player the face of BetRivers Poker.

Until the last moment, experts tried to deduce in which state the poker room would start working. Ultimately, they chose Pennsylvania, although BetRivers Poker could have opted for Michigan or New Jersey, where RSI already has gambling sites and the poker industry is legal.

Phil Hellmuth congratulated Galfond and BetRivers on the launch, and Ryan Laplante did a stream.

Software

Bet Rivers Poker Table

BetRivers Poker will have to compete in Pennsylvania with PokerStars, WSOP, BetMGM, and Borgata. All of these use software recognized by European players. The latter two use partypoker software, and WSOP.com uses 888Poker software. However, after the purchase of the World Series by NSUS, it will most likely migrate to the GGPoker app. Galfond's room has a unique app, which stands out for its minimalist and modern approach, as well as having several features:

Random seating with a minimum buy-in of 100BB
Anonymous games by assigning random nicknames at the tables
Dynamic avatars that change according to the playing style
Built-in HUD: HeroIQ
Hand history downloadable 24 hours after the session ends (currently on request to support)
The use of any third-party software is prohibited.
Table selection and bumhunting are impossible due to the structure of the games.

Games

Bet Rivers Poker Lobby

At the time of launch, the following games are available in the BetRivers Poker client:

6-max Hold'em cash games at eight stakes from NL2 to NL1k
6-max Omaha cash games at seven stakes from PLO10 to PLO1k
SnG Select tournaments are played as classic Spins and 3-max hyper-turbo based on the player's choice. The maximum spin multiplier is 1,500x, with five caps from $0.25 to $25. The Glitch is a random prize that can be won by any SnG participant, even if they don’t make it to ITM
MTT. During the first night, there were a dozen tournaments with buy-ins of up to $10 and guarantees of up to $1,000. Almost all of them overlaid

Rake

The rake on cash games is lower than all competitors: 4.75% (4.5% in NL2), with the following caps in Hold’em:

Stake	2 Players	3 Players	4 Players	5 Players	6 Players
NL2$	$0,30	$0,30	$0,30	$0,30	$0,30
NL10$	$0,50	$1	$1	$1,5	$1,5
NL20$	$0,50	$1	$1	$2	$2
NL50$	$0,50	$1,5	$1,5	$2,5	$2,5
NL100$	$0.60	$1,5	$1,5	$3	$3
NL200$	$0,75	$2	$2	$3	$3
NL500$	$1	$2	$2	$3	$3
NL1000$	$1,25	$2,5	$2,5	$3,75	$3,75

In other poker formats:

SnG: 4% - 6%
MTT: 5% - 10%

BetRivers Poker Promotions

I Rush Reward

The BetRivers Poker welcome bonus is 100% up to $1,000. It is activated with the bonus code “POKER.” It is released at a rate of $5 for every $25 of rake (20% rakeback). There are 120 days to clear it.

The iRush Rewards loyalty program, which consists of nine levels, is common to other BetRivers gaming sites. Players can purchase cash bonuses for points in the shop. It is not yet clear what rakeback players will receive through iRush Rewards.